Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations
by Cydra
Summary: When a mysterious being is attacking EXP victims, the gang temporarily move to another spacecraft. They are then sent to Manhattan to investigate some odd going-ons, many of which are of a nocturnal nature.
1. Reassignment pt 1

**Gargoyles and Lilo and Stitch is property of Disney. The NSC and related things are property of Largefish8. Draco, Chip, Morph, NegaMorph and Omnirus are property of Cydra. The UNSC and covenent tech is Halo tech and property of Bungie.**

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 1: Reassignment pt 1**

Councilmember Oriano of the NSC council followed General Orsen into the ward. "How many is it now?" he said. "About 10 now, and a couple of them were civilians," said Orsen, "and they're not a pretty sight afterwards." Oriano looked at the several EXP mutants lying on beds. Their eyes were completely blank and quite a few of them were drooling. "What exactly is doing this, how is it doing this, and why?" he said, disgust lingering on his voice.

Orsen shrugged. "We have no footage. Whoever it is, he's a pro. He's targeting all EXP victims...and..." he said but the councilman finished horrified. "They're all in our empire task forces...reassign the ones left...keep them out the way until this assassin is located and dealt with." "Hmm, that'll be difficult," said Orsen, "In fact, there are two in particular who move around quite a lot."

"Are you a general or not?" Oriano said angrily. Orsen looked down as a message arrived and smiled. "Don't worry...I have the perfect mission for them."

--

Matt and the crew looked out at the huge form of Central Station. "Last time I was here was for trial." said Matt, yawning. He hadn't slept well. "You don't think we're in trouble, do you?" asked Lilo. "From what I've heard, this is for our own protection," said Kala. There was a pause and she said, "Yeah, I have trouble believing it too."

Matt nodded. "Yeah," he said. An aide in a military uniform came out. "Captain, the general will see you now." Matt sighed and walked inside. General Orsen was standing, looking out into the crowded spaceport. "Mr. Lynch...What you're about to hear doesn't go outside the room...specially not to the kid EXP-infected."

Matt's face became slightly more grim in expression. "There's not some sort of mutation affecting the EXP-infected, right?" he asked. Orsen sighed and turned on a holofeed. It showed several people in a hospital. They were clearly lobotomized and even more clearly EXP-infected. "What the hell?" said Matt. "Someone is hitting EXP infected...regardless if they're military or civilian. One's a kid barely older then the one outside." said Orsen sadly. Matt glared. "The 'kid' has a name."

"I prefer to not get too involved with someone who's more likely than others to have an accident," said Orsen. Matt ignored the comment and asked, "What exactly happened to them?" "Someone drained the A.I. from their heads. The psychic trauma was enough to 'crash' their brains. They'll recover...eventually...but I don't want anymore of our key military staff out of the fight...you're being assigned a ship..." said Orsen, looking gloomy. Matt smirked.

The NSC preferred UNSC and Covenent tech from the Halo verses and it was usually the best ground tech around. Orsen glared, seeing Matt's impression. "You and your force are in command of the NSS Bladestorm until whoever's behind this is caught. Your first assignment is with your Ensign...claims to know you..."

Matt raised an eyebrow and said, "Huh, most often when I hear that, I feel some sort of dread. It's not a girl, is it?" "No...he joined up after Executive Genetics was shut down 2 years ago," said Orsen before shoving a medal across. "Get to your ship...commander." Matt smirked. "Does this mean I get regular pay?" he asked cheekily and was nearly blasted out the door by Orsen's yell of "GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR, YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" Matt fled out the room and fell over Morph. "He's got some good lungs on him," he said

Matt stood back up and said, "Well, I might as well go see my new ship." He started walking off and noticed an odd squishy sound with every other step he took. He looked down to see his foot was wrapped with a dazed Morph. "Aw man," he said.

--

An hour later, the gang were flying the North Star throughout the fleet, looking for the Bladestorm. "Ok...where is it? Oh, I hope it's a Planet cracker class," said Matt happily. The comm beeped. "North star and BiNebular. This is Bladestorm. We have you in visual...release controls for auto-docking." A very old ship came in range. "You're kidding," said Matt in gloom. The ship, an old Phoenix class, sat next to several destroyers. "That junk's my ship? I knew this would happen," said Matt gloomily.

Then a thought occurred to Matt. "Say Chip," said Matt as he turned towards his cyborg friend, "You think I could borrow V-Quip for a little bit?" He looked down at V-quip. "Go attach to the nice ship," he said and was electrocuted for his trouble.

"Don't think that's gonna be easy," said Chip, "Mechomorphs have their limits and even if he could merge with the entire ship, it'd take a while for him to be able to reformat it without the security systems attacking him. The best you could hope for is one piece at a time." The BiNebular could be seen being tractored into one of the bays. "Oh, I hope Stitch and Hyena don't occur to someone...I bet it's not the best way to make a first impression," said Matt gloomily. The bay the North Star was flying into looked crowded with ground crews and marines in battle gear. "Ok, Please don't cause too much trouble, we gotta work with these guys for a bit."

"So where are we going on this big ship?" asked Draco. "I dunno...the jobs aboard but it seems like it's gonna be for a bit." said Matt as the North Star set down. The rest of the bay was filled tons of military gear, from Covenent Wraith tanks to Sparrowhawk vtol fighters and alot of other equipment. "Well, least we'll have alot of firepower," said Matt cheerfully.

--

The group stepped down into the bay. Matt was a bit nervous. Usually bay crews were there to capture or shoot at him so it was a pleasant surprise when one trooper called 'OFFICER ON DECK!' and the whole bay saluted. "Y'know Draco, I think I may like this." "Let's head over to the main bridge," said Matt, "I wanna sit in the captain's chair." "Ok, but no silly pauses between words," said Chris.

The bridge had obviously been made for a non military ship, though the controls were anything but civilian. A guy in combat fatigues was standing talking to one of the pilots. He had an ensign uniform and turned as he heard the hatch open. "Sir, I have your..." he stopped at the same time as Matt. The ensign was very familiar...

"Mark?" asked Matt, "Is that you?" "Matt?" said the ensign, also sounding surprised. "Mark, how long has it been?" Matt said, grinning. Chris said. "You know this guy?" Matt nodded. "Mark helped me and Chloe out of a few tight fixes back when we were starting out," he said before saying to Mark. "Heard you were dead, last time I trust MSN news."

"So how have things been back at, er," Matt looked back at his friends and changed the subject, "So what made you come here?" Mark shrugged. "Some guy with a bunch of battle droids materialized in Tokyo and said we had to obey some creep named...what was it?" he said. Matt answered darkly, "Hamsterviel."

Mark nodded. "Yea, that was the guy. The guy's droids didn't last very long versus the gang. I thought I'd head here and see what was happening. My merc company said I had to help out and here I am," he said. Before realising that Matt was avoiding the subject. "Er...my company has an outpost there," he lied. As lies went, it was convincing.

Matt then brought the conversation in a more forward-direction, "So, do we have any assignments aboard this ship?" Mark nodded. "An old friend as it happens," he said, turning on a hologram. The figure was easily recognized.

"Hey," said Draco, "It's that black market Splitter, Whatsisname." "Romanov," corrected Mark, "He's been spotted going into forbidden territory with some dangerous weapons." "So what else is new?" said Matt, sounding unsurprised. Mark added, "Turns out he was the one who sold the battle droid tech to the Emperor. NSC intelligence wants him alive." Matt rolled his eyes. "Oh...great...knowing our luck, it's a demon-infested hellhole of a dimension..."

--

**Meanwhile, in a New York warehouse district...**

Romanov, in human form, looked down at his watch. "Vere is zat idiot human, Castavay?" he said to himself. Suddenly he noticed an armored jeep driving towards him. "It's about time," he grumbled. Several Quarrymen piled out, hammers charged and at the ready. A blonde man climbed out. Mr. Castavay. A pleasure to be meetink you again," Romanov said, all smiles. His two bodyguards, T-X's in human disguise gave the newcomers the assessing stare of all bodyguards.

"Yes, though our last meetings have not been so pleasant, though that was no fault of ours," said Castaway, "Perhaps this time will go smoother." Romanov grinned happily. "My associates can dispose of any trouble vith ease. Zis vay please," he said, walking over to a crate. He pulled out what looked like a rock with a handle, purple spikes jutting out of the top. "Ze type 33 guided munitions launcher, known as ze needler. Eet is capable ov trackink movink targets vith an added bonus...vatch if you please," he said and fired at a shipping crate, several of the purple spikes shot into a crate and exploded, blasting a baseball-sized hole in it.

"Impressive," said Castaway, "Very useful for making Swiss cheese out of pesky meddlers." Castaway grinned and reached for a blue gun. "Ze type 25 directed plasma rifle. At least 200 years ahead of current military technology," he said, blasting a riddle of holes in the same crate, the crate's metal proving useless against it. "Ze price for both is quite reasonable...$1,000,000 per thousand units," he said.

Castaway pursed his lips and said, "Hmm, not simple pocket money, but considering its power..." He suddenly interrupted by the sound of wings swooshing through the air. "Oh no, not again," moaned Romanov.

Several winged shapes with glowing eyes swooped down. "VY DON;T YOU LEAVE ZE SMALL BUZINESS MAN IN PEACE!" yelled Romanov as the Quarrymen opened fire. He pointed at the shapes and yelled to his T-X's. "KILL ZEM NOW!" he practically screamed. The T-X's turned, eyes glowing. The first one transformed his left arm to a plasma cannon while the other pulled out two plasma rifles from the crate and both began firing until the red beaked one landed in front of one and punched him, causing the droid to stumble.

"Heh, Vikings put up a better fight than these tin cans," said the gargoyle. "Don't get cocky, lad," said an elderly one-eyed gargoyle wielding a sword, "Greater warriors have been defeated by an innocuous opponent they turned their backs on."

The red gargoyle was proved right as the terminator straightened up and returned the punch with interest before striding towards its prey. "Unidentified organic...hostile...removing," it intoned, aiming its plasma rifle arm only for the elderly gargoyle to stab it from behind. The machine turned and aimed.

Romanov, who knew exactly the type of humor the ancients had as far as luck went covered his eyes as the gargoyle jumped the retaliatory blast which hit the other T-X dead center, blowing it apart. A smaller gargoyle with green skin and different wings from the rest said, "Why'd you have to do that? I wanted to see how it worked." "How about you avoid letting them do their work on you?" said the elderly gargoyle.

The T-X seemed to glare and grabbed a needler from the crate, firing a spray at the gargoyles, tracking their dodging. Romanov and Castaway had to duck as several shots narrowly missed turning them into pin cushions. Castaway's jeep was not so lucky, the shards igniting its gas tank. "Erm...I'll give a discount." said Romanov nervously.

Castaway grabbed Romanov by his shirt front and said, "You better get rid of these fiends now or our partnership is over." "I...I don't know these guys. you know that," he said. Both looked down to see a few shards in the crate at their feet. "Oh no," said Romanov gloomily as the shard blast knocked them down. Castaway shook his head as the smoke cleared, a winged lizard-like creature, wearing the same armour that Romanov had been.

Castaway drew his gun and said, "Well, this explains a helluva lot. You made a big mistake when you thought you could dupe John Castaway." Romanov backed up. He doubted even his fast talking could get him out of this. "Erm...first shipment free? You am thinkink I am one of zose?" he said. A screech of metal got his attention and the remaining T-X's head landed at his feet. The gargoyle clan leader, a big purple one threw the T-X's body aside. Romanov had taken the opportunity to learn the name of his annoyance the first time the clan had attacked. "Goliath, vy do you torment me?" A blast from the Quarrymen got his attention back. "Oh screw zis. I vill get you for zis, Goliath. You are beink as bad az dat mercenary," he said, flying as fast as he could, as far away as he could.

--

It was later, Romanov sat at the workbench he used for prototypes, fixing his holo emitter so he could look human again. His ship's pilot was next to him, passing equipment. "So...we move universes again?" he said to his boss. Romanov glared, "Not till ve find vat ve came here for."

"But now the Quarrymen think you're one of them," said the pilot. "Yes," said Romanov frowning, "those superstitious hunters von't allow me to explain about aliens before they shoot me dead." "But they'll send a hitman."

Another associate, on a com scanner suddenly paled. "Oh smeg...boss? An NSC ship just warped in...callsign 'Bladestorm'. It's in Jupiter's orbit...ETA is 4 hours." Romanov rubbed his head. "Oh for heaven's sake..." he said, looking down at an old NSC map. "We check the last part..." he said. "But sir, if we leave anything for the NSC team..." said the pilot was cut off. "I vill go alone. If zey follow, then the infected vill have a meal," he said darkly adding, "And make sure zat flyink annoyance, Goliath, unt hiz people know to follow. It iz ze perfect test."

--

Meanwhile, the Bladestorm was approaching Earth. "There's something that's bothering me," said Mark, "Why bring a little girl on a military mission?" Stitch, who had been talking to Mark, with the other experiments shrugged, impressive coming from a four-armed lifeform in any case. "Me naga know." "Whatever it is, I hope we have some way to fight it," said Matt.

Matt walked out for a minute. Techo, who had also been there leaned forward. "Maybe it's something to do with whatever's been picking off EXP infected?" he said to the experiments. Mark winced. It was supposed to be a secret but then again, Techo hacked restricted files for fun.

"Maybe, but if they're giving us this ship, it's probably going to be something big, really big," said Mark. The intercom beeped. "First mate to the bridge," said the PA. Mark sighed and walked out. Draco turned to Chip and asked, "So what makes this universe so unique?" "Not sure," said Chip, "but I'm detecting both magic and hi tech on this Earth, we may be in for a few surprises."

Matt and Mark were looking at a hologram of NYPD records. "The idiot," laughed Matt, "He thinks that he can trade weapons and not be noticed." Mark nodded. "We got an address...some hotel on Manhattan. Nice and easy." Matt nodded and scrolled down to see a flashing line of text. They only flashed if it was urgent. "A hit's out on him? Who the smeg's Castaway?"

"Whoever he is, we better get to Romanov before he does," said Mark, "I don't think Romanov's just here to trade goods, he's after something else and we need him to tell us what it is." Matt looked at it. "Shouldn't be too hard. Two fireteams. In and out before the NYPD knows we were there," he said, adding, "And my friends will be helpful too. Chip eats security systems for breakfast."

"But what about the magic?" asked Mark seriously. Then he burst out laughing and said, "They're just kidding right? There's no such thing as magic. Digimon are one thing, but they're digital." Matt raised a hand and turned it draconic. "Believe me, it's real. All the men with iron rounds...just in case," he said.

--

The two Pelican dropships circled down through the clouds, revealing New York ahead. The NSC had taken to raiding the Haloverses for technology, if only for the fact that the UNSC tech was easy to mass produce, very important with the Empire hammering on their doorstep.

Matt got up from the co-pilot seat and walked into the back, bumping into Draco. The experiments had come along, as if Matt could have stopped them. Plus, none of the marines aboard the Bladestorm, not even the ODST's were experienced with the sort of traps that Romanov could cook up. Matt's ribs still hurt from when the weapon dealer had set Tuatara, a cybernetic version of a mutagenetic creature he'd faced a year ago, on him.

"Uh, this thing does have parachutes, right?" said Chip nervously as he looked down on the city below. "Don't tell me you're afraid of heights," said Draco. "No, I'm not," said Chip, "I'm just naturally nervous about potentially plummeting several hundred feet to my death." One of the marines smirked. "You'll be fine, our pilots are the best," he said, just as the dropship went though some turbulence. Matt went and sat down. He personally dreaded the point when, and he knew it was coming, the gang foud out why he'd really kept Lilo aboard, originally saying they could deal with Romanov on the way to Earth.

Contrinus looked down and said, "So which building are we going to? They all look the same up here in the dark." Matt pointed down. "There. The Liberty Arms hotel," he said. The second Pelican had already landed and had offloaded its marines. "Mark, anything on the police radio? I really do not want to explain MA5C assault rifles to the NYPD," he said, jumping out as the dropship hovered a few inches off the roof.

"Can't get any on this frequency, let me try another," said Mark who was on the Bladestorm. He adjusted it and suddenly Chip's voice was heard saying, "Boy, it's really high up here. How can anyone be comfortable living so high above the ground? This must be where the rich snobs live." They looked to see Chip looking over the side and his lips not moving.

Techo took pity and pulled him back. "You'll be fine. Your fall onto Galva Prime's moon still gettin to ya?" he said as one of the marines burnt the lock clean off the steel security door. "We're in," said the marine. Matt nodded. "Still nothing?" he said, the group heading down the stairs.

"How did he know I was nervous about the height?" came Chip's voice on the radio, "Wait a second, is that an echo? No, wait a minute, that's the radio. Oh god, they must have heard me. Oh god, I can hear me!" The rest quickly became music being played very quickly.

"Change that frequency, will you?" said Matt. Mark adjusted the radio and the voice that came out was very different, "Ok, we're converging now. That double-crosser won't know what hit him 'til it's too late." "Mark? Zoom in the Bladestorm on that. Check to see if Romanov upset the city enough to send in SWAT," he said, concerned. A boom further down and a yell of surprise, followed by an 'oof' signalled that the marines had found whoever had been guarding Romanov's home. "Call me when you have something," he said and headed down. A guy in NSC battle gear and holding an iced-up needler was trying to back away from two grinning marines and Draco, who had apparently been the needler's target of choice. "Oh...erm...Sierra convention?" said the prisoner weakly, holding his hands up. He paled even more when he saw Matt come down. "I'm dead," he said simply.

Matt glared at the merc then looked down at Draco, winking with a small smirk. "You ok?" he asked, igniting a plasma orb for good measure. Romanov's goon didn't need to guess where it would go if Draco's answer was not the one Matt wanted.

--

On the Bladestorm, the comm officer next to Mark said. "Erm...I just hacked metro cams...is that an armoured truck?" he said. An armored van, like the ones SWAT liked had parked near the hotel's service entrance. "If they send anybody into the hotel, tell us about it," said Matt. "Erm, they kinda did," said Mark.

Matt rolled his eyes. The last thing they needed was SWAT, maybe they could impersonate an FBI team. A knock at the door caused the marines near it to tense up. Matt looked at Draco and the other experiments. "Just get him to blab about where Romanov is going. Techo, record what he says. I'll get rid of the cops," he said.

Matt opened the door and knew the situation won't be easy when he saw they clearly weren't cops. "Er, can I help you gentlemen?" "We're here for Romanov," said the leader. "He apparently flew the coop, so there's no point in you coming in..." said Matt. Just then Morph came over and said, "Hey Matt, Romanov's toadie just-" Morph was interrupted as the people outside blasted his head to pieces.

Matt slammed the door in the group and ducked as several lasers shot where his head should have been. The marines began shooting back through the wall, several yells of pain reward for their aim. "Why can't something go right? Mark, you there? Jam the police band. That gunfire'll bring em like moths to a flame," he said. A Quarryman used his shock hammer to blow a hole in the wall beside the door and was floored by a triple burst from the marines' assault rifles. Matt punched a second one on the nose with the full force of his EXP mutation behind it, sending him into his friends with a crash. "Time to leave," he yelled, grabbing Techo as he went, causing the merc to drop his PDA to the floor. The quarrymen followed behind them, ducking for cover as the marines fired at them. One of them got on his own radio.

Morph waddled around like, well, a chicken with his head cut off as he regenerated. Surprisingly, he was avoiding all the random shots throughout the wound by mere inches. The Quarrymen were quick behind them. "These guys are determined," said a marine, blasting another in the shoulder as the Quarryman tried to climb the stairs, sending him back down with a series of thumps. Just then, Morph regenerated his head. "Morph!" yelled Matt, "We need a distraction now!" Morph blinked and transformed into a surprisingly cuddly-looking pink experiment with big blue eyes.

Matt's eyes widened in shock and slight fear. "Rebreathers down now!" He yelled just as a faint green cloud came from the experiment. The results were impressive. Several Quarrymen passed out from one sniff and two ran into each other trying to get away. "What the smeg was that?" said a marine to Draco.

"Experiment 254," said Draco, a little nasily since he was pinching his nostrils shut, "more commonly referred to as Mr. Stenchy. Designed to be irresistibly cute so he could get into enemy bases and let off his awful stench." "Its times like this I'm glad I don't have a nose," said Chip.

Techo went over and prodded one of the quarrymen. "What did Jumba use for that? CR riot gas?" he said as the Quarryman moaned. A laser blast came from the stairs as the rest of the Quarrymen, copying the idea with their own gas masks came up. "Here we go again."

Matt dodged a blast and accidentally brushed the dial of the radio. "We're on our way, Elisa, make sure no civilians are nearby," said a deep voice. Matt was confused and changed frequency to talk to Mark. "Who was that, Mark?" he said, throwing a plasma orb at a Quarryman taking a bead at Chip.

"I don't know," said Mark as he tried to get a better focus, "The odd thing is that it was on a similar frequency to the police's communicators, but it wasn't a human voice." "Great, more trouble," he said, switching frequency. "Drop 1, where the smeg are you?" he said and jumped as a hail of rockets caused the Quarrymen to scurry for cover. "Right here, sir," said the smug pilot.

A short time later, the band of gargoyles dropped on the rooftop. "It looks like we missed the party," said Brooklyn. Then Lexington noticed a dropped PDA, "At least they left an address," he said.

--

On the Bladestorm, the gang were all looking at a copy of the information that Techo had gotten from the goon. "I never knew the NSC had facilities out here," said Matt, looking at the hologram of the facility. Wilson shrugged. "They used to, till the quarantine line was moved," he said. Techo sighed. "The guy said that Romanov wanted something from there to do with Tuatara."

"Tuatara?" said Kala, "The cyborg lizard that cracked Matt's ribs?" "I find it very hard to forget him," said Matt. Techo shivered and Wilson looked grim. The three of them had met Tuatara's people before and knew all to well what this could mean. "We go down there, blow the place up," said Matt, darkly.

"Oh sure, blow up a building in New York containing lizard mutants," said Chip sarcastically, "No one will ever notice." Techo showed the feed. "It's not in New York. It's a mile outside the limits," he said. Matt nodded. "You have no idea what Romanov might cause. We have to stop him and it's the only way," he said.

"Well how bad could those lizards be?" asked Contrinus, "It's not like there's anyone here who's actually be on Sy-yong." Matt walked out at this. Techo rolled his eyes. "You experiments need people skills programmed in. How do you think we know about a classified incident?" he said.

--

Meanwhile, the gargoyles were gliding over to the abandoned facility. "Why would this place be of any importance?" asked Broadway. "Perhaps it contains something that is very important," said Goliath, "And not likely something harmless."

Inside the base's control center, Romanov and his two remaining employees sat at controls. "I gottem, boss. Bearing 3 by 32," said one. The other was twitching. "Wh-what the hell were those things in the cells, man? They had NSC marine uniforms on...but...but..." he said gibbering. Romanov ignored him. "Wait for zem to get inside then seal ze..." The calmer goon suddenly tensed up. "NSC Pelican approaching, orders?" he said. Romanov glared. "Ok, let zem land, then activate perimeter weapons, kill zem."

As Matt slid down the rope and onto the roof he said, "Be quiet, we can't let them know we're here." Quite soon afterwards, Morph apparently missed the rope and fell down with a loud 'yipe' before splatting on the roof.

Techo aimed his battle rifle around and the flashlight highlighted a line of scratches, in the steel of the landing pad. "Er...Matt?" he said. Matt looked at it while the others got off the hovering dropship. "Ok, you got the cryo-bullets?" he said. Techo nodded but a boom got everyone's attention. Two railgun rounds from a rising turret went clean through the dropship's cockpit, blowing it apart. A second later, two SAM's from another turret blew the rest to rubble. Without hesitation, the turrets switched to their machineguns and opened fire on the group.

--

Romanov laughed happily as he saw the marines scatter and run for the ramp down into the main complex. "Seal zem in and begin the lock timers and turn on the P.A system," he said, leaning back. He felt even happier when he saw that the apparent leader was Mr. Lynch. He'd be able to kill all his enemies on one go. It was like it was Romanov's birthday.

--

The last marine rolled down the ramp close behind Kala and Draco. "Ok, I think Romanov's definitely in system control," said Wilson sarcastically. "No, ya think?" said Draco. "Stow it, Draco," said Kala, "We have to put those guns out of commission before they blast them to pieces." "We gotta get to system control," said Techo. "We're lucky they hadn't got the napalm mortars online," he said as a wail got everyone's attention. A huge blastdoor was rising from the floor rapidly.

The clan heard faint human voices, speaking what sounded like gibberish. (NSC standard). Broadway peered round the corner to see Matt and the gang crowded together, debating how best to find System control. They didn't see the gargoyles as they hadn't yet grown accustomed to the gloom inside the base.

"Who are these guys?" asked Broadway. "And more importantly, are they allies or enemies?" asked Angela. They got a slight shock when the creatures and one of the humans suddenly got glowing green eyes. Matt and Draco were the first to spot them. "Over there," Matt said, pointing, glad that he still had experiment night vision, even if it wasn't as powerful as a full experiment's. "Shouldn't be too hard to take care of them," said Draco as he breathed ice at them.

Matt threw up a plasma shield as the gargoyles scattered before rounding, angrily. "They aren't infected," whispered Techo to Draco. "What's the big idea?" yelled Brooklyn angrily, eyes glowing. Matt glared, never taking kindly to being spoken to like that and was about to reply when Romanov's voice came from the speakers. "Ah...ve have all made ze introductions, Da?" he said

"Romanov!" yelled Matt and Goliath at the same time. They paused and asked each other, "You know him?" "Oh, I see ve have not yet had proper greetinks. Oh vell, it's more appropriate to say goodbye." Matt gulped. "If you are wishink to know how you vill be killed, ask Mr. Lynch. He knows my new...employees better zen anyvon...HAHAHA..." he said, terminating the link. "Well, that bodes." said Wilson, aiming his rifle around.

"What manner of monstrosity is he unleashing?" asked Goliath. "Something I really hoped I wouldn't have to deal en masse again," said Matt. Brooklyn glared. "What do you mean, again?" he said. Matt glared back and made a slight mistake, he ignored Brooklyn, turning to the gang. "Cover the tunnels, the vents, everything a person can fit in, even if it seems unlikely. Techo, load up the cryo..." he said and was interrupted as Brooklyn spun him round to face him.

"I said, what do you mean again?" demanded Brooklyn, his eyes glowing. "If I stopped for explanations now, they'll be on us before we can defend ourselves," said Matt. And with that, the infected that had been watching from the balcony with reptilian interest, chose that moment to leap on the gargoyle, clearing Matt and pushing the merc back. Brooklyn struggled to hold the infected away, the two matched, strength-wise until there was a silky noise. The infected looked confused and then its head fell off. Matt stood behind it, holding his ion staff. "I really hate those things," he said, helping get the prone infected off Brooklyn. "CONTAC...ARRGH!" yelled a marine who was dragged by his head into a vent with a scream. More cries rang out as the rest of the infected, furious that one of their number had been killed, leapt from their hiding places.

"So long as these are not magic," said Hudson as he drew his sword, "I think we can take them." "You don't need magic to be deadly," said Chip. "Quite true, lad, ye are a lad right?" "Actually, I'm dead center, but referring to me as a male saves a lot of trouble," said Chip as he decked an infected that was sneaking up on him.

The infected shrugged it off and forced Chip to narrowly dodge a punch that smashed the concrete like it was polythene. Matt shot one infected between the eyes and blasted another with a plasma blast, both shuddering as they began to self-heal. Techo emptied a clip of Cryo-rounds into another, freezing it solid, till the ice evaporated.

The infected grinned toothily and threw the merc into Wilson before helping two of his fellows mob another marine. "Fall back or we're dead, or worse," yelled Matt, blasting the leg off another infected who was leaping at Broadway. The infected weren't about to make it easy, forcing the group to split up and head down separate corridors; Brooklyn, Matt, Wilson, Chip, two of the surviving marines and Kala in one, and the others down another.

--

Techo was running in front. "Don't look back...and don't let em scratch you," he yelled, firing a burst over his shoulder, catching an infected who was leaping at Mark, in mid air. Draco picked up Morph and shook him. "You're the one with all the experiments' powers." He pointed him at the infected and said, "Use them." Morph was slightly dizzy from the shaking and ended up becoming Swirly.

The infected stopped, and started making a 'hss hss hss' noise, it was laughing. Right up till Swirly-Morph hit him with both barrels, so to speak. The infected keeled over, tripping two of its fellows who turned on it. With a chill, Draco recognized the uniform on one as one of the marines who had been mobbed earlier.

"Time to make like birds and fly this coop," said Lexington. To his surprise, the infected suddenly started flapping their arms and strutting around like chickens, with horrible impersonations of said fowl's cluck.

The infected marine then grinned and aimed its sidearm at Lex, only for Techo to shoot the door control, sealing the now angry infected off. "That ought to hold em for a bit," he said. "Hope the others are ok."

--

Meanwhile, Matt and his group weren't in a much better situation. He was at the back of the group, firing and was barely holding them back. He finally got a similar idea to Techo and shot the door control for the emergency bulkhead, sealing the infected of, at least for a while. He had no wish to have an accurate re-inaction of Sy-Yong, right down to his own infection.

"This infection shouldn't work against me, right?" said Brooklyn. "I'm not sure," said Chip, "but mixing infected DNA with, um, what are you again?" "Gargoyle," said Brooklyn. "Gargoyle? As in the water spouts carved as statues on cathedrals and castles?" said Chip. Brooklyn glared and punched an infected hard enough to send it back the length of the corridor. "Ooook, so that's a no," said Matt. Wilson fired at another, more cautious infected. "Talk later, guys," he yelled, running into a side room.

Chip and Kala quickly followed after him. As Brooklyn came after them, he asked, "And what are you two?" "Wrong time to go into detail," said Chip, "But in a nutshell, we're genetic experiments from another planet that's in another universe." Matt looked at Brooklyn's confused face. "You get used to it," he said cheerfully, "Name's Matthew, Matt to my buds and 'don't let him escape' to my enemies."

"I'm Brooklyn," said Brooklyn as he shook Matt's hand. "Huh, odd name your parents picked," commented Matt. "We gargoyles aren't usually named. It's kind of a long story." "Which we don't have time for," said Chip as the sound of claws against steel started getting louder. Matt glared, eyes going red before aiming his hand at a small hole an infected had just torn and sent a needle thin beam of plasma through, causing a shriek of pain. "I REALLY hate those guys," he said, walking past the trio. Kala looked at Brooklyn apologetically. "He has anger issues," she said.

--

Romanov as he watched the monitors, "This is so much fun. If only I had some popcorn." One of the goons walked up, "Sir, what if they get out into the city? The infected, I mean." "Who cares?" said Romanov, "Humans are not my concern. Ve'll be out of here long before the NSC come to glass this city." The goon looked at Romanov solemnly. He'd been recruited here, but then again, Romanov was the boss.

* * *

There's the first chapter of my new story. This is also my first two-parter chapter. I think this makes an appropriate cliffhanger. The gang and the clan trapped by the infected. How will they survive? Stay tuned for the next chapter to fine out. Please review.

On an additional note, this is my first Gargoyles fanfiction and I'm just getting into the series. So please excuse any errors concerning the continuity and the characterization.


	2. Reassignment pt 2

**Gargoyles and Lilo and Stitch are property of Disney. The NSC and related things are property of Largefish8. Draco, Chip, morph, NegaMorph and Omnirus are property of Cydra.**

**I forgot to mention earlier, this story is going to be of the same continuity of the stories on the Gargoyles Saga site. It's a very good site, I recommend it. This story takes off some time after Brooklyn returns from his forty year Phoenix Gate journey.**

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 2: Reassignment pt 2**

Matt stood peering at the half-open bulkhead. The infected seemed to have given up since they'd tried to get in earlier. Matt however had the horrible feeling that they weren't trying cause they were working on a faster way in. "So, how long have you and your...friends been in NYC?" he said to Brooklyn, not taking his eyes off the tear, had that been movement? "About three years," said Brooklyn, "but it's been longer for me." "How's that?" asked Matt. "It's a long story," said Brooklyn.

"Didn't I already say we have no times for long stories?" said Chip. Kala gave Chip a harsh look and Chip said, "Sorry, as soon as we manage to survive this, we'll introduce ourselves better."

Wilson glared at the tear. "This ain't right. These guys don't give up, ever," he said. A faint clunk from above got everyone's attention. "Oh hell no," said one of the marines as red eyes appeared staring from the grates. "Of all the times to leave my rifle back at the castle," muttered Brooklyn. "Castle? What-" But Matt caught Chip's eye and nodded, "Later."

The first infected tore the grate aside and poked its head out, only to be knocked back as a plasma blast hit it in the face. "Let's go! Move it!" yelled Wilson as the rest of the infected jumped down. The group ran back down the hall, Matt and the marines firing over their shoulders. One of the marines turned a corner only for a waiting infected to push him down and begin mauling him. The gang ran down a side corridor, right into a type of genetic therapy room. "Ah smeg," muttered Matt and the gang tuned for their last stand. The first infected ran up to the doorway, took one look at the room's contents and turned tail, screeching. "Ok, that was new," said Matt

"Why didn't they follow us in here?" asked Kala. "Maybe that's the reason," said Brooklyn pointing. Matt looked to see lots of lab equipment, including containment chambers and hypodermic needle sets.

"This must be where they were administered the mutagen," said Matt, "No wonder they wouldn't want to go back in here." The remaining marine with them said, "Well, they're not going too. I can see em at the end of the corridor," pointing to where the infected sat, patient. They knew full well that their prey had to come out at some point. "Okay, there's gotta be something we can use as a weapon," said Chip, "Matt, you had to get through these guys before. How did you do it?"

Wilson said, "We used fire extinguishers to freeze them, but it doesn't seem to work this time." He walked around before seeing a console. "Hey Chip, come over here," he said.

Meanwhile, with the other group...

Techo had just finished fusing the bulkhead shut though it didn't stop the angry cries of the infected on the far side. "That ought to hold em," he said finally. Romanov's voice came over the comm. "Oh zat is very good, a shame zat your friendz are not so resourceful, no?" Goliath's eyes flashed white, "If you've done anything to harm Brooklyn, I swear..." "Temper, temper, you need to cool ov." Suddenly the fire sprinklers went off, soaking everyone. "That's only annoying us," said Broadway, "You'll have to do better than that." Romanov chuckled. "If you are insistink," he said. The door control beeped. "Override activated," it said in a bored voice but luckily Techo's mods worked, the door just whining. Romanov swore. "Grr...you vill not be so lucky forever," and signed off.

Back in the control room, Romanov struggled to find a bypass to Techo's additions while the merc next to him, the one who'd snapped earlier, was fiddling with a control panel. "Can't let him...gotta stop..." he muttered. "Vat are you mutterink abou-" Romanov suddenly noticed what he was doing. "Var are you doink?" he demanded. "We can't let those things get loose," said the merc, "I'm turning on this base's AI so it can exterminate those monstrosi-" He didn't finshed before Romanov shot him. The other merc came running back in, gun out. "Sir?" he said looking from his dead partner to Romanov. "Get vid of zat trash," said Romanov coldly. Nobody saw the beeping red light...

--

"Guys, Draco, Techo, you there?" said Matt's voice from Techo's wristcomp. "Matt, we thought you were goners," said Techo. "Fortunately, we've found the serum lab and the infected don't want to follow us in. But we can't stay in here forever," said Matt, "However, we did find something interesting." "Get this," said Matt, connecting his wristcomp's feed to Techo's.

A hologram of a person in a lab coat emblazoned with the NSC symbol appeared. "Good morning, council," it said, apparently speaking to an unseen person,"As you can see, we're making substantial progress with the 'Lizard Serum', hopefully we can avoid the terrible accident that occurred on Sy-yong. However, in the small chances that should happen, we've prepared this base to stop the infected from escaping." The figure continued. "I also must put forward the possible weapon applications for this serum. Troopers that could heal crippling wounds ON the field would be a major advantage." He suddenly turned towards something he could see and turned back, listening to something that made him go pale. "...b-but sir...it's in the NSC's best interests...why?" He was about to continue when he suddenly jerked and fell out of sight. A gas-masked figure holding particle rifle stepped over him. "He was recording, kill the feed," it said.

Wilson's voice came over the comm as the hologram ended. "And now we know why this base wasn't listed." "But how does that affect us?" asked Draco. "Well, I'm betting the NSC would REALLY hate for say...a group of mercs to come home with this recording and releasing it to the news net," said Techo. "But check the dating," said Contrinus, "I think this was before the current council was elected." Techo nodded. "Yea, I heard they were real creeps. I'm guessing we're lucky Romanov didn't power up the base computer fully otherwise we'd really be screwed."

Suddenly a voice came over the intercom, "Artificial Base Warden online, infection breakout detected, executing extermination program." "I don't like the sounds of that," said Lexington.

Back in the control room, Romanov was staring in horror as one by one, the monitors shut down. "You are in violation of quarantine. Genetic bomb sanitization system armed...general genetic code targeting...all possible infection factors to be neutralized," said the warden, adding, "Additional targets in main genetic lab and corridor 5...assault drones dispatched." "Zat fool," growled Romanov, "He must activated the AI. We have to get out of here before this place goes sky high." The door fell with a clang. "I cannot allow that. The council stated that this base must be kept classified. You are potential witnesses," said Warden as on the screens, several hatches opened in the corridor where Goliath and the clan were.

--

Techo turned as he heard the steady rumble in time to see the drone roll out, its particle minigun rotating to aim. "How do we stop these machines?" asked Goliath. "I'm not sure if you can," said Techo, "unless you're strong enough to tear through metal." It turned out that they were, Hudson cutting the barrel off the drones turret with his sword while Angela ripped out its power cell. "Well, that was easy, oh great," said Draco, as 4 more drones rumbled into view.

--

Matt winced as his comm suddenly went into static. "What in the hell was...DOWN!" he yelled, firing at a drone that had rumbled out a hatch beyond Wilson. The drone shuddered and decided to aim at Brooklyn instead. Before it could, Chip plunged his fingers into it and let off a blast of viral energy. The drone shut down immediately. The warden spoke, "Unidentified viral subject detected...modifying drone defenses." Matt sighed. "It's never easy," he said. They turned as several blasts were heard, mingled with the infected shrieks. "Least that's one job," said Wilson. Brooklyn then jumped on one and ripped its cannon off. He then used the removed cannon to bash the rest of the drone. Matt managed to get his comm back. "You guys ok? Something tells me Romanov pressed the wrong button." Techo was heard. "Yea...damn, these gargoyles know how to clean house. We're headed for control, should be a corridor there for you too." "Hopefully, the infected and the drones will keep each other busy long enough for us to escape," said Matt.

The warden sounded again. "All personnel...Genetic bomb active...detonation in 2 minutes...disarming program is deleted...have a nice day." Matt swore angrily. "That idiot...YAH!" he yelled as an infected tackled him down. "You...pack killer...diediedie!" it screamed angrily. "Oh hell, they've got genetic memory," muttered Matt as he kicked it off. The infected landed on a drone, which caused the drone to go around in circles to shoot at the infected. It appeared that whatever setting the drones' guns were on was extremely effective. "Let them sort out their differences out. If they're fighting each other, they're not fighting us," said Matt.

Suddenly Matt heard a sound that he might have thought of been something drilling, if it hadn't been coming from a solid metal wall. Suddenly the wall popped open and Morph came through, hoping his spinning shield in front of him. Matt looked at Brooklyn and was surprised to see that he didn't have the usual expression of shock at one of Morph's tricks. He shrugged and peered through the hole to see Draco and the others, "Hi guys, you've found a shortcut." "Found a shortcut, made a shortcut, all good," said Draco, "Is the control room near here?" Matt pointed down the corridor.

"And the infected following you?" asked Techo. At that, two injured but very angry infected rounded the corner the gang came from. "You had to say it," said Matt. One charged Broadway, but he used his broad belly to bounce it away from him. Another chose to target Draco, only to be frozen in place by a few ice blasts to his limbs. It hung from the wall where it had been stuck, glaring daggers at them.

"Let's get out of here before this place blows," said Wilson. "Blows? In a populated area?" said Angela. "The old NSC were kinda jerks," said Techo. The warden spoke again, "Genetic Bomb now arming. You have 1:30 to reach orbit." "Please tell me it's exaggerating," said Chip, "I don't think we can escape or contain that kind of explosion." "What do you think?" said Matt.

---

The command center turned out to be a tad harder to get inside. "You have to be kidding," said Matt. A single pathway led over to the pillar of adamantine that held the control center, surrounded by twitching security turrets and more of the drones. "Well, that sucks," said Techo, peering over Matt's shoulder.

"I might be able to disable those turrets," said Chip, "Unfortunately, I can't get up that high." Lexington went over to Chip. "I could help out," he said. Matt however was looking at the drones. "These guys will be fun," he said sarcastically. The warden spoke again, "Escaped subjects neutralized…" Matt and the gang sighed with relief, till the warden continued, "Countdown reset and bomb retargeted to remove secondary intruders, three minutes and counting."

"Well, we've got more time now," said Matt, "Let's just keep our heads cool and have our brainy techs disable the merciless computer." "Me?" said Techo. "No, I mean the inhuman bald techs." Techo glared and thumped Matt, sadly getting the attention of the drones. Everyone turned and glared and said, "Way to go." The drones wasted no time, rumbling to get into weapon range. Matt flicked his hand, making one drones explode as its power core went critical.

---

Romanov watched gloomily as his enemies and the warden's drones started fighting. "I'd never thought I'd say this, but I hope the damn merc actually lives," he said before having a small nervous breakdown. His remaining merc aide patted him friendlily. "Look on the bright side sir, you may get to watch him get shot…OW!" he said as Romanov thumped him.

---

Chip hung onto Lexington as he climbed up the walls. "Can't you just fly us up?" asked Chip. "Do these wings look like they're built for flying?" said Lexington, "besides, all gargoyles can only glide."

Matt was shielding Techo, who was trying to hack the door to control open while the rest of the clan fought with the drones. "Techo, faster please," said Matt, straining from blocking so many shots. "Why don't YOU do it?" answered Techo irritably. "You know I only have one method of getting through high-tech locks, and it looks too hard to blast," said Matt. Techo rolled his eyes, "Then let me do my job." A turret took advantage to blast Matt in the side, knocking him down before aiming at Techo. "Oh nuts," he whimpered. Before it could fire, Brooklyn ripped it off and tossed into another turret Chip and Lexington hadn't reached yet. "Thank me later," said Brooklyn, "Just get that door open." Techo nodded and turned back to the controls.

The warden spoke again, apparently to Goliath, "Unidentified lifeform, you have no claim, the gene bomb will not target you, your actions are futile." Techo glared and carried on, "Just you wait until I get in there, you overgrown toaster." "I don't think it knows about gargoyles," said Angela to Goliath. "It does not matter," said Goliath, "This device will destroy all the humans in the city and we cannot allow that to happen."

"Then you shall be terminated," finished the warden. Techo finally grinned as the door whirred open. The warden spoke again, apparently an automated reaction, "Alert, unauthorized breach, security to central control." Techo smirked and tossed an EMP grenade in. "Oh shut up," he said as the grenade fried the entire room, the warden screeching as its system was cooked. "See? Not just Chip who can fry A.I.'s," said Techo smugly.

Romanov and his merc peered out from behind a console. "See sir? Told you they'd rescue us…OW!" Romanov glared at the mercs. "Please let me hurt zis idiot," he asked. "Show us where the main terminal is," said Matt, "I'm not in the mood for beating around the bush." Romanov glared and pointed, "No point, your pet monkey fried ze panel. Ze bomb is useless. You vealize how valuable zat device could have been?" Matt glared and nodded to Wilson. "Get this guy outta here," he said before trying his comm to see if the signal was back, "Mark? You there?" Romanov turned to Goliath as Wilson and the marine dragged him past, "You cannot let zem, I vill be executed." "Buddy, if it weren't for the fact that I'm working for the guys who want to execute you, I'd do it myself," said Matt, "and stop groveling, it's undignifying." Romanov struggled more. "Zey will not let you, zey protect life," he said, as if the words were disgusting. "If you're trying to win pity, your failing miserable," said Chris, "Where are those cuffs?" Matt tossed them over.

"Wait," said Goliath, "guilty of not, this being should be imprisoned, not executed." Romanov perked up at this. Even Chris stopped in the process of cuffing him. Matt glared at him. "Romanov is a parasite, but yea, maybe if he tells where the empire's homeworld is he'll just get life in Kryos. I'm sure it's rebuilt by…" he said but was cut off as Romanov shocked Chris and pulled out a strange handgun. "I'm no goink anyvere. All ov you, hands vere zey can be beink seen. Zis is a reality gun, and it can easily kill any of you." "You don't know that," said Kala, "for all you know, it could turn into a hot dog in your hand." "Ah, vat a brave little creature," said Romanov as he pointed the gun at Kala, "How about ve see if it works properly?"

Matt readied a plasma orb, "Do that and you're dead a second later." Romanov smirked and said to Kala, "You follow me, in case your master decides to cut my freedom short," grabbing the experiment and running off. A second later, the marine fired a burst, "Dammit, almost." Matt was staring in shock till he yelled, "GET THAT CREEP!" before running after the splitter.

Eventually, Romanov began to regret his decision. Kala wasn't hard to carry, but she would not stop talking. "You're really gonna regret this," said Kala, "As soon as Matt catches up, you're going to wish that gargoyle didn't speak up for you. The NSC's execution methods are nowhere near as bad as Matt when he's angry. And not just him…" "Vill you shut up?" snapped Romanov as they got outside, "Zat's it, I don't care if it kills you or turn you into a fruitfly, as long as you don't chatter all day." He tossed Kala down and aimed the gun between her eyes. "At least I vill some kind ov revenge, goodbye miss," he said and fired a purple blast into the experiment, knocking her back several feet into some crates. He turned and ran for the treeline as a Pelican sent down from the Bladestorm flee overhead.

---

Matt came put onto the surface first, murder on his mind. "When I get my hands on Romanov…" he muttered before noticing Mark running over from the newly arrived Pelican, holding the discarded and drained reality gun, looking solemn. "Oh no, nonononono," said Matt, shivering with shock as the clan and the rest of the crew came out. "She might not have been blasted out of existence," said Chip, "Like she said, anything could happen when you pull the trigger. She might have been transformed or turned invisible." Matt nodded and said, "Let's spread out and find her."

Everyone looked around for her but it was starting to get light. Matt was surprised when Goliath said they had to go. "You're just gonna go like that?" he said coldly. "You see, we gargoyles are nocturnal creatures, but not the same as other creatures," said Goliath, "So you see, it's important that we're in a safe place when we-"

He was interrupted by Contrinus calling, "I think I found her." Matt and Goliath turned to see Contrinus near some crates. "What do you mean you think?" said Matt, walking over. "Well, it is her, she looks pretty different. In fact, her color's the only way I can tell it's her," said Contrinus, "Of course I may be wrong." Matt blinked. "What are you talking…about?" he said, getting a peek.

What Matt saw only had a passing resemblance of Kala. In truth, the young female gargoyle more closely resembled the female with the clan, whom he recently learned was named Angela. This gargoyle had the same build as her, but her skin was a bright red color, including the silky hair that went down to the bottom of her shoulder blades. Unlike Angela, she didn't have small claws on her wings. The dress she wore resembled Angela's but it covered both shoulders and had a low neckline that was held close by a single stitch. Unlike the other gargoyles, her ears were longer and batlike and she had long antenna instead of horns. "Erm...ok..." Matt said, words failing him. "Kala? Erm...this may win the award for dumb things to say, but are you ok?" It apparently was Kala because she turned in his direction. Matt noticed her eyes were also like Angela's, only the pupils were green. "I feel pretty weird," she said, her voice unchanged, "and I'm having a bit of trouble balancing? Do I look okay to you?" Matt nodded, keeping a neutral face before helping her up. She was easily the same size as him now, a fact she quickly noticed. "Well, this is one definite perk," she said, "I don't have to strain my neck to look into your eyes." She did so and the two of them soon found themselves blushing.

Broadway cleared his throat and said, "Uh, if she has become a gargoyle, she's going to turn to stone at sunrise, and that's very soon." "Perhaps she could roost with us," said Angela, "I'd certainly like to know more about these strangers." Matt looked over at the clan. Usually he'd sooner chop his own head off then let one of the crew go off alone. Given his luck's track record, anything bad could and probably would happen but... "Fine, there won't be trouble in me popping in to see if she's ok, will there?" "You'll have to ask Xanatos, it is his home," said Goliath, "Perhaps Lexington should call him and explain the situation." "Why can't you?" asked Matt. "I'm... not used to the telephone yet," said Goliath, looking slightly embarrassed. Matt nodded at this. He still wasn't used to some of the gadgets in nullspace, even after years. Central still had him banned from vending machines since the incident where he'd somehow engaged the station self-destruct Nobody had yet worked out how.

Romanov ran through the trees before finally stopping, confident that Matt's men had finally been eluded. Unknown to him three raptor-like heads peered out of the bushes. He didn't know till a snap made him turn to see three infected staring at him coldly. "St-stay back," said Romanov, "I'm warning you." "You're the one. You let us free. Why?" said the leader in a surprisingly normal voice. There were none of the normal reptilian hisses. The other two laughed creepily at Romanov's threat, one of them saying, "Or what? Romanov was unsure of how to respond. For one thing, he doubted his lightning could hurt them much. And he wasn't quite sure how to tell them he wanted to use them for living weapons. "You want to use us, but instead you saved us from the fate of our predecessors. We should thank you..." said the leader before grinning, showing his teeth. Romanov had a moment to realize what they'd consider a reward before the infected lunged at him.

* * *

And there's another chapter. Things are about to get interesting very quickly. Kala's predicament is not the only unusual thing that's going to occur. Incidentally, Kala's dress is based on Angela's dress in the comics, not the show. There are going to be plenty of faces popping up in the next few chapters, so you won't want to miss an update. Please review.


	3. Salutations

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 3: Salutations**

Matt steered the warthog jeep through the dusk NYC streets with practiced ease. It was nearly sundown and he was heading to the Eyrie Building to see if Kala was ok. Morph, Lilo, and Stitch had insisted on coming along. Lilo and Stitch to see if Kala was ok and Morph because nobody trusted him near all the high explosives being ferried down from the Bladestorm. "Don't worry," said Lilo, "Kala will be just fine. She has the best protection around." Matt steered around and through some red traffic lights, mostly from force of habit. "You're right but those files we got on these Quarrymen losers, well, I'm worried. Until the labs back up as our base, well..." he said trailing off. The Eyrie Building came into view ahead. "Now then, I juuust need a parking space..." he said. Lilo and Stitch, after nearly a year traveling with Matt, both reached for seatbelts as Matt spun the jeep into a space in front of the building. "Like a glove, where's Morph?" he said

Meanwhile, a Mercedes was driving by with a quarreling couple inside. "I told you we should have taken that turn on Second, Brendan," said the woman. "Well, Margot, this should be a shortcut if you'll wait long enough." "I'd rather not spend any more time in the car than I have to," said Margot. "Don't worry," said Brendan, "the sun's still up. No gargoyle's going to show up." Suddenly a small white blob with four eyes splatted on the windshield. "Howdy-do," it piped.

Matt heard the distant cries. "There he is, I'm sure he'll be fine," he said in the happy tone of someone who knows horrible things are occurring but not to himself. He jumped out and headed for the front doors. "Everyone remember where we parked." he said, despite the fact that the futuristic jeep stood out like a sore thumb and walked into the lobby.

As the gang came in, the guard came up and said, "Sorry pal, we only allow seeing-eye dogs in here. The pooch will have to wait outside." "I think you'll find orders telling otherwise if you'll check with an appointment that Mr. Xanatos has with a Mr. Matthew Lynch," said Matt smugly. The guard didn't even bother to look down, instead taking in the futuristic hardware Matt had. "I didn't know the sci-fi convention was in town..." he began, not noticing at Lilo and Stitch both winced and Matt's eye twitched.

The guard's partner came to the desk a second later to see his companion dazed and a fuming Matt trying to unlock the lift. "Hey buddy, you can't do-" Just then, Morph waddled in the front door, the imprint of a handbag on his face. "Man, can that lady swing," said Morph. Matt glared at the console as it beeped negatively in an almost smug way. He seriously considered blasting the controls when they opened and a blond person in a business suit and with a stone hand stood there.

"Mr. Lynch?" he said in a voice that could have came out of a machine. "That's me," said Matt, holding out a hand to shake, before realizing he was holding out the wrong hand and switched. "I am Owen Burnett, aide to Mr Xanatos. I apologize for the trouble with security, we did not expect you to be...so young," the guy said the same almost mechanical tone. Matt shrugged. "Well...then I'm sorry that I knocked out your desk security. This is Morph 630, Stitch 626 and Lilo Pelakai," he said, happy that Lilo had her inhibitor on and so looked human. "I see," said Owen, his left eyebrow raising only half an inch, "are your companions of a supernatural nature?" It was Matt's turn to raise an eyebrow, both of them. "Say what? No...weell...maybe Draco but he isn't here," he said. "Very well," said Owen, "if you'll walk this way." He walked stiffly over the lift. Morph shrugged his shoulders and walked in the same manner over. Matt glared at Morph, mouthing, 'Not now,' and followed Owen inside the lift. Even with the high speed lift used by most high rises, it took a while to reach the castle.

When the doors to the lift opened, a man with long brown hair and a grey and black business suit was waiting for them. "You must be Matthew Lynch," he said in a charismatic voice as he shook Matt's hand, "I'm David Xanatos, CEO of Xanatos Enterprises. Welcome to my humble home." Matt nodded. "Pleased to meet you," he said. He was cautious. What little data the NSC had on Xanatos, a feat considering the resources that the NSC intelligence division had, had said that he could run mental rings round even the best minds in the NSC. "So...I hope what Kala's said about me's all good," he said. "Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to chat with her before the sun rose," said Xanatos, "Pity, she seemed like a charming creature." He turned his attention to Matt's companions, "So these are the alien creatures I've hearing so much about. I expected them to be taller." Matt shrugged. "Small but mighty, like the Tic-tac commercials," he said with a grin. "This is Lilo, she's like their...owner, I think," he added, allowing Lilo and Stitch to come forward and taking advantage to wander off to look for Kala. "You call this place humble?" said Matt as he looked around at the very impressive stonework. "Had it imported from Scotland, the gargoyles came with it, though they've recently moved back in here," said Xanatos. Matt looked back at him. "It's a long story."

Matt wandered out a doorway into the courtyard and spotted a woman in a red jacket, standing near the battlements, her stance practically screaming 'cop'. "Guess I'm not the only one here tonight," he muttered. The woman turned to look at Matt. Matt was no expert in genealogy, but if had to guess, he'd guess she was half Native American/half African. "What are you doing out here?" asked the woman. "Erm, a friend of mine stayed the night here," said Matt cautiously. The woman's expression lightened tremendously and she said, "Oh, you must be Matthew. Detective Elisa Maza." "Nice to meet you...erm...the gun's part of my job," he said as Eliza's gaze fell onto Matt's pulse blaster. He looked around. "These gargoyles are good at hiding, aren't they," he said looking around before leaning on a statue.

Then Lilo and Stitch came outside. "Whoa," said Lilo as she looked over the battlements, "How far up are we?" Stitch leaned over and spat down. He perked up his ear to hear when it would hit the ground. Matt watched as well, finally pulling out some binoculars. "Ten points, Stitch, you hit that couple Morph met," he said with a smirk as the sun finally went below the horizon. "So...where do the gargoyles hide then?" he said to Elisa.

Then Matt heard a crackling sound. Matt looked up at one of the towers to see the several statues developing cracks all over them. Suddenly the statue sprang to life and roared loudly, sending pieces of stone skin everywhere. Matt had to jump for cover to avoid the pieces. "Ok, well, that's effective cover," he said weakly before looking around for Kala. Before he could locate her, he heard growling right in front of him. He looked to see a large blue beast with glowing white eyes. "It's okay, Bronx," said Elisa, "He's Kala's friend." The beast stopped growling and sniffed Matt. Then he let out a loud bark and jumped on top of Matt.

Matt was knocked onto his back by the weight. "Ouch! Well, I never liked my ribs anyways," he managed to say as Bronx and a smaller version of Bronx, who had wandered over, sniffed him all over. "Matt, you came," said Kala's voice out of Matt's vision. "Kala, glad to see you're al- UGH!" Matt was interrupted when the two gargbeasts started giving him a tongue bath.

Two young gargoyles pulled the gargbeasts off of Matt before Bronx could get him any flatter. Matt wiped the drool off his face and said, "I almost prefer Chupy's show of affection." He turned to the youngsters. "Thanks, erm..." he said, trailing off. He didn't recognize the new gargoyles. The girl said. "I'm Ariana and this is my brother Graeme. Sorry about Nudnik. He likes to meet new people." Matt was about to reply with sarcasm when he remembered how Chupy, the crew's mascot and resident domesticated demon thing, liked to 'greet' people. "It could have been alot worse," he said finally. "Pleased to meet you, kids," he said.

Brooklyn walked over, his arm around the shoulders of a green female gargoyle wearing Japanese garments from a much earlier time. "I see you've met our children," said Brooklyn. Matt looked over. "I can see the family resemblance," he said, rubbing a bruise. "And you are?" he said, looking at the gargoyles with Brooklyn, carefully keeping his voice respectable as he remembered how the gargoyles had torn the security drones to pieces the night before. "I am Sata," said the female gargoyle, bowing her head respectively, "I've heard from my mate last night. You are an honorable and skillful warrior, Matt-san."

Matt almost blushed. People who he usually 'demonstrated' his skills to were usually not very appreciative (as plasma rifles aimed in your face tend to be offensive). "I was just lucky, which makes a change," he said, adding the last part after a second's thought. "So where did you two meet?" he asked. "Feudal Japan," said Brooklyn. Matt, Lilo, and Stitch gave them confused looks. "It's a long story. And it seems we have time for them now." "And where are the rest of your companions?" asked Sata. "I'm very interested in meeting this dragon and phoenix I've heard about."

Matt shrugged. "They wanted to check out the city by themselves," he said before smirking, "Ah...young love." "I'm sure we can all understand that feeling," said Angela. "Some more than others," grumbled Lexington. "I wonder when Chip will get here," said Kala, "He is planning on coming, right?" Matt shook his head. "We're using the lab as our base but as the Warden was fried, the whole computer needs re-programming...soooo" Matt said, remembering that Techo, the closest to Chip's expertise that a human could be was also helping added, "...he should be here in a few minutes."

Suddenly a grappling line appeared on the side of the battlement. Before anyone could react, Chip climbed up over the wall, wearing clothes one would normally find in the Alps. "I always wanted to do that," said Chip as he turned off his holographic clothes, "and for the record, I came up from the floor underneath the castle. I didn't climb all the way." Matt peered over the edge. "Thought you hated heights," he muttered, "At least we can have some proper introductions without mutants trying to see what we taste like." "Trust me, I'm not likely going to do that again," said Chip as he looked around at the gargoyles, "So what's a clan of presumably magical creatures doing in a castle on top of what is presumably the tallest building on this planet?" Matt nodded. "I'd like to know that too, including what a castle is doing here in the first place at that," he said.

---------

Meanwhile, a certain pine green dragon-like creature and a brightly feathered phoenix-like creature were flying over various houses. "This New York is as dazzling as the one back home," said Contrinus. Draco flexed his wings as he turned in air. "I'm guessing this Earth's a little behind in time than our Earth since the air doesn't have as much smog in it. Let's fly over Central Park." A large crowd could be seen gathered in the park. Many of the watchers were holding various placards but there seemed to be a pattern. People in blue suits were blocking off people that had placards declaring them as members of something called 'P.I.T'. "What's going on here?" asked Contrinus. "Looks like some kind of rally," said Draco, "and a not very friendly one by the looks of it. Let's land in that tree so they won't notice us."

A blond man was on a speaker platform in front of a passable statue of Goliath. "These monsters run rampant in the streets. Yes for now they attack the criminal element, but what is to stop them attacking your families. The Quarrymen fight to eradicate this threat and protect you and the city brands us terrorists," said the guy on the platform. "Sounds like your average xenophobic humanist," muttered Contrinus, "Why is it that some humans are incapable of sharing a planet with another sentient race?" The majority of the crowd that had been let through looked ready for blood at this wand a fair number were already taking the offered uniforms and gear. "Something's funny about those hammers," said Draco. "Just some sledgehammers that can zap," said Contrinus. "I know, but the way they zap. That could be just science, but it doesn't feel like it."

Meanwhile, one of Castaways aides came up to him. "Radar picked up two small units landing nearby; maybe it's those young gargoyles?" "Can you get a visual?" asked Castaway. "The security cameras are repositioning to get a look of them as we speak," said the aide, "but from what we could tell, it was pretty small. Could have been owls." The image finally appeared. "Those are not owls," said the aide, the image showing Draco and Contrinus's outlines on thermal. "They're the wrong shape to be gargoyles," said Castaway, "Could be animals of some kind. Just have someone throw something at them to scare them off." The aide looked at some of the other details.

"The cams have sound," he said and turned on the speaker. "Draco, they're weapons," said a female voice, "Magical or scientific, they could still hurt. I don't want them turning on us." "I'm not wanting to start a fight," said a male voice, "We'll head to where the others are in a sec. Besides, I think I can handle these overgrown mallets of theirs." "Okay, I wonder what those gargoyles are like? You know I am curious about meeting new species," said the female voice. Castaway turned to his aide and said, "These things are neither human nor gargoyle, but if they side with gargoyles, they're enemies. Have some take care of them, but do it quietly." The aide nodded and radioed one of the heavy weapon squads to move in. "What if they know where the gargoyles are nesting?" he started. "Seems to me they're out-of-towners," said Castaway, "probably don't know where those creatures roost. But we can't let them find it and therefore ally with them."

Back at the tree, the Quarryman team finally got their final orders and opened fire with a hail of particle beam fire. "Waste of ammo," grumbled one of them, "Shooting after talking birds, we should save for- JESUS!" The last part was shouted out when a green dragon and a golden bird flew out of the tree. "Don't just gawp," said their leader, "Take them- WHOA!" He leapt back as the two creatures apparently breathed fire at them and flew off. Draco and Contrinus flew a couple of blocks till they were sure that nobody was following. "That was close," said Contrinus. "Agreed," said Draco, "I vote we skip any more sightseeing and head on over to the Eyrie Building."

---------

Meanwhile, Goliath had finally finished telling how they had arrived in Manhattan. Matt was dumbstruck, especially as to how the Quarrymen could be currently still be getting support. "I've heard of being unappreciated but your situation takes the cake," he said. "Sounds like you've got plenty to chew as well," said Elisa, "Fighting an evil empire of robots and aliens sounds pretty tough." "Yeah, and the unconnected, though equally aggravating, magical antagonism we've encountered is not of a soothing nature either," said Chip. Matt had the decency to look embarrassed. "It was partially my fault." Morph happily said, "I thought it was because you tried to pawn off the Fang Stone...what?" he said as Matt glared daggers at him.

"Well, you can't blame yourself for the Doom Weapons and Ghoulwyrm," said Contrinus as she and Draco perched on the wall. Draco noticed Kala sitting next to Matt with her head leaning against his shoulder. "Aw, isn't that cozy?" said Draco, causing Matt and Kala to separate instantly, both blushing furiously. Matt rolled his eyes. "So...we won't be leaving till we find Romanov," he said in a desperate attempt to change the subject. "Problem is that any dimension's NYC is a catacomb of hidey holes. We could have the whole home fleet scanning the city and still miss him."

---------

Meanwhile, not far from Earth, a small ship hovered in the asteroid belt. The crew had picked up an escape pod and had retreated here to crack the door on it, safe from the Empire's prying eyes. When Omnirus had emerged, they'd wished they had handed it over to the empire. Now the mutant was walking through the ship, looking at the other specimens the team had found. "Ah, you will be most pleased with this, sir," said the ships A.I, Norton. Omnirus smirked to himself, "Having Grey Matter's brains can come in a lot of handy, particularly for reprogramming A.I's. So what have you got for me?" "This lifeform was found in Dimension Z-14. Files identify it as a type Z hostile lifeform known as a Kryteer...PLEASE DO NOT GET TOO CLOSE!" said Norton, shouting the last part as Omnirus looked at the strange form in the bay, which at first resembled a dark mist. The mist started to take form but Omnrius stepped away. "A shapeshifter," he commented, "not unlike myself. But what does it change into?" Norton said simply, "Your worst nightmare, with which it kills you quite effectively before draining your brain patterns to nourish itself. Type 120 disintegrators were ineffective. Eventually deputy engineer Arnolds had to be bait to lure it into the cell," said the A.I coldly.

"Drains brains? I like the sound of that," said Omnirus, "Could be useful in some experiments, but I better get those NSC jerks off my tail. Pity I can't do in person right now." Norton said coldly, "Can I note that no sentient lifeform, including yourself is immune. Indeed, had I not alerted you, you would be a vegetable by now. Who would you consider enough of a threat to let loose such a horror?" "It's not so much for the terror, but for the destruction," said Omnirus, "Scaring people's fun and all, but smashing feels more accomplishing. And since this is a so-called 'magic' dimension, they'll probably be able to handle it. I just need a little more preparation time before I land. So don't question me again or I'll put your programming into a microwave." "Then you will do it yourself. The three laws prevent me from aiding, but the section release is right behind you," said the A.I. Omnirus turned, looked at the button, and shrugged his shoulders. "Fine with me," said Omnirus as he pressed the button. A few moments later, the room that contained the Kryteer shifted positions and then it shot out of the ship in the form of an escape pod to the planet below.

* * *

There's another chapter. Now the gang and the clan have been properly introduced. I wish I could have stretched that part out a bit more, but would have been way too long and pretty much unneccessary. Anyways, things are definitely going to pick up, not like it's been going slow. So hang onto your armrests as it, it's gonna be one wild rollercoaster from now on.

By the way, this story takes place after the two-part 'Sacrifices' story in Season 1, but not during the winter. Just so you know where we are.


	4. Harum Scarum

**Gargoyles and Lilo and Stitch are property of Disney. The NSC and related things are property of Largefish8. Draco, Chip, morph, NegaMorph and Omnirus are property of Cydra.**

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 4: ****Harum-Scarum**

The bridge duty on the Bladestorm, like any night watch, was hated like in any military organization. Having to spend all night long looking at a screen that only showed Sky satellites tended to annoy after a while. So it was a shame that the guard didn't pay attention to the pod as it passed by the scanner's range.

--

The newly reprogrammed 'Warden' A.I was more vigilant however and tracked the pod as it screamed into the atmosphere at Mach 2, smashing down into a deserted street and punching through to the old tunnels below. The A.I sighed inwardly. 'A guard A.I's work is never done,' it thought as it beeped the commander.

--

Matt moaned and blasted the beeping intercom with a plasma burst. "This had better be good," he yawned. "...It's 3am." "Sir, we've got a UFO sighting," said the Warden A.I. "Oh yeah, that would be us. We travel in a spaceship, a majority of my personal crew are aliens, I don't like getting sci-fi convention calls before sunrise!" "I have uplinked to NSC command and referenced the UFO to known empire devices...it is a deployment pod," the A.I said. It was impressed at how fast Matt ran out the room at those words. Anyone would have thought he had said that a zombie virus outbreak had occurred.

Matt ran into the closest occupied room, which happened to be the tech lab. Chip and Lexington had quickly become friends and were working on a project together. Specifically, a set of rocket-power shin guards for Chip. Chip was putting one on for fitting when Matt ran in and yelled, "Hey, we've got a bogey!" Chip's hand slipped and accidentally started the rocket. "Oh blitznak," he said. Matt ducked as Chip flew out into the corridor, knocking out a marine. "...just when I thought I'd seen it all," he said, watching Chip's progress down the corridor before remembering why he'd come. "I have a bad feeling that our old bud, the Emperor, sent a clone-shaped present to us." Warden chimed in at this.

"There is only a 56% probability of that. No Empire military ships are in range." "Yes, but clone deployment pods have a tendency to wander about space until they find some unlucky planet to land on so they can cause havoc," said Matt, ducking as Chip passed over him. Matt finally grabbed Chip and deactivated the booster. "Most of them are gone but we keep seeing a few every now and then," he said.

"But what if it's some other alien threat?" asked Lexington. "C'mon, how many non-empire alien threats have we come across," said Chip. He paused and said, "On second thought, don't answer that." Suddenly the booster turned on again and Matt was unfortunately still holding Chip at the time. "HOW DO YOU STOP THIS CRAZY THING?" they both yelled as they rocketed down the corridor.

By the time that Matt, Chris and a small team had driven to the crashsite via warthog, the police were already barricading the area. "Ah, hell, why can't it ever be easy?" muttered Matt as the small mini-convoy turned the corner. The commanding officer told them to stop. His badge identified him as 'Officer Morgan.' Matt jumped out the warthog and walked over. They'd happily had a plan just in case the cops had gotten there first. It had been Warden's idea.

"Ok, officer...Morgan...Me and my squad'll handle it from here," he said, using as official a voice as he could. "Sorry son, but unless you have proper authority, I have to ask you to leave," said Officer Morgan. "We do, and if you go away now, you'll get free donuts at Dunkin Donuts," said a rather young-looking soldier. Matt pushed the soldier aside and flashed an ID card in the officer's face for a split second. "NSA...This is very top secret hush hush, we don't want these Quarryman wackos getting to the satellite that crashed here," he said. Before Morgan could get a good look at the card, his radio buzzed. "Morgan here, over," he spoke into it. After someone on the other side spoke, Morgan said, "You sure, chief?" After the response, Morgan shrugged and said, "Ok, if think so." Morgan looked at Matt and said, "The Chief called me about NSA sending a squad to take care of this. I guess you're free to go on ahead." Matt nodded. "Pull your men back, I want this entire block sealed off," he said. "The...device we're recovering may be radioactive," he said. Morgan shrugged and said, "As long as it's away from here. Who's up for Dunkin Donuts?" A surprisingly large number of cops hurried over to the nearest store of that name, which was on the corner.

The tunnel had been almost completely caved in, rubble almost burying the pod completely. The only sign that it was there was the pressure door laying against the wall, bent in the middle at nearly a 45 degree angle and the hole that had been its doorframe. Three figures, Matt leading them, jumped and scrambled down the rubble. "Ok...not a virus clone," he said as Chris and the other marines came down into the tunnel, leaving a few to guard the jeeps. A growl echoed out of the hole. "Tell me that was my stomach," said Matt weakly. "Let me check if it was mine," said Morph and his head retracted itself inside his body. A minute later, it popped up and he chirped, "Nope!" "I don't know what frightens me more," said Matt, "the way you answered my question or the answer."

Chris nodded before pointing at some of the troopers. "Team one, let's go." Team one filed down the hole along with Chris. Matt followed with the others. "Meet up in one hour," said Matt, looking at the smoking pod. No clone could have torn the heavy-looking door apart that lay in shards across the tunnel. "Ok, let's try to find whatever this thing is, and let's not panic when we see anything unusual," said Matt and when he turned, he promptly came face to face with a yellow version of Broadway with red eyes. The two of them screamed and ran in opposite directions. By the time the team had gotten their act together and shot a few flares down the tunnel, the lookalike was gone. "What in the ancients was that?" said a private. Matt shuddered. "Gone, I hope, let's move," he said, turning on his comm., "Chris, anything yet?" "Nothing you'd really want to hear over lunch, or breakfast, or dinner," replied Chris. "Ok, just keep an eye out for anything unusual and when I mean unusual I'm referring to anything that does not belong in a mundane dimension's sewer. And no albino alligators." Chris replied, "What?" but Matt turned of the comm.

"Sir, we got signals ahead, three human lifesigns," said a corporal quietly, pointing down a side tunnel. The group moved along and peered round the corner to see three people, homeless by the state of their clothes. "Crud, that's all we need. HEY!" he said, yelling the last part and walking towards them. "You gotta get out of here. It's not safe." A deep voice behind him spoke, "No one's forcing these people out." Matt turned and nearly had a heart attack when he saw a humanoid panther with glowing yellow eyes and bat wings standing over him. Matt stared, swearing in splitter out of shock. "Who the hell are you?" he said, taking a few steps back, "...and we're not here to force anyone out." "My name is Talon and the surface is a lot more dangerous for these people to survive there." "Well, some kind of alien's down here that's gonna make it hard for everyone to survive," retorted Matt. Talon seemed to have lost Matt, "Some kind of what?" he said, sounding thoroughly confused. "Alien," said Matt, "you know, 'We come in peace', little green men, 'Destroy all humans'. Oh wait, that's robots." Talon gave him an incredulous look, "Uh, did you hit your head on the way down here?"

Matt suddenly stopped, looking past Talon. "Don't...move," he said softly, raising his rifle, spotting the same red eyes from before, with two extra pairs. "Hey man, what are you-" Matt shot at where the red eyes were, causing whatever they belonged to give out an inhuman cry of pain that sounded nothing like a gargoyle's roar. A cloud shot out into view. Given where Matt's shot had gone, it should have been missing its head, instead it looked very angry. It shimmered into the shape of a four legged silver mech, complete with laser cannons and wailed, firing at Matt before aiming at kick in the direction of Talon.

The Kryteer was angry, it had found little food beyond barely sentient animals and upon finding proper fear to feed upon, the small lifeform had fired one of its metal sticks. It was still weak from no food and now it was angry. It would crush the small human and feed on the others' fear. Before it could proceed with the crushing, Talon through a bolt of electricity at it. Given its currently metallic form, the attack was very effective. The creature shimmered, revealing the cloud for a minute. The rest of Matt's team ran round the corner firing. The creature decided that 9 enemies was too many to handle for now and changed into a black wolf, loping away down the tunnel, much too fast for a normal wolf. "What the heck is that thing?" asked Talon. "Very good question," said Matt, "Mind if I applied that to you first before we stop that thing from causing any more trouble?" "I suppose that's a fair enough question," said Talon, "You might say that I'm a genetically-engineered imitation of a gargoyle. We prefer the term 'mutate'." Matt just looked at Talon. He suddenly realized how lucky he was that he had a choice of looking human with his own mutation. "Ok...well...that thing there was what we were chasing, hold on..." he said and turned on his communicator, "Chris, you got trouble heading your way, it's some kinda shapeshifter.

Chris, who was with Morph at the time, said, "I hear it coming. What form was it when you last saw it?" "A black wolf." "Then how comes I'm hearing clacking?" asked Chris. His answer came when the shapeshifter in question appeared in front of them in the form of a very creepy-looking marionette. One of Chris's team screamed. This seemed to excite the creature even more, making it grab the marine. A white mist shot out from the marine's eyes and his screams petered out, finishing with the marine falling to the ground as a skeleton. The creature turned on the others, suddenly giving out a fresh air of confidence...and hunger. Morph was particularly creeped out by the puppet. He hid behind Chris's leg, shivering all over. When the puppet fixed its eyes on him, Morph let out a very loud scream that seemed even too much for the puppet to handle. The Kryteer looked over at the little blob. It definitely gave off enough fear, but the screaming would give it indigestion. It had eaten enough for now. The Kryteer turned into a RC car and zoomed away along a small overflow pipe. It could smell sooo many humans ahead, it would feast tonight.

"Uh Matt," said Chris over the communicator, "that thing just scared the life out of one of the marines, literally." The Warden had been listening, "I have monitored feeds and such a creature is on record. However, how the empire acquired one is beyond my reasoning. It is a type Z demon known as a Kryteer; it feeds of lifeforce that is laced with fear. They were apparently wiped out when the NSC destroyed their planet." "They always miss a few," muttered Matt, "and we're unlucky enough to find one. So, any specific weaknesses on this thing?" "Yes, a 900 megaton nuclear weapon is deemed effective," said the Warden. Matt sighed, "One that won't reduce the US to a pile of ash please." The Warden tutted, "Please add specifics then. The answer is not on record. All known ground engagements with fully grown specimens ended in complete defeat. However, this one appears to be a juvenile. Extreme heat would be effective complete with positive wavelength magi energy." "The extreme heat we could probably handle, but as for the positive energy, that's harder to come by," said Matt, "It'd be easier if Draco were around. Where is he again?" Chris sighed, "No idea..." Warden chimed in. "Draco and Contrinus's lifesigns are in the city limits 2 city blocks north of your sector. Do you wish me to comm them?" Matt rolled his eyes. "Remind me to get Techo and Chip to install some urgency in the computer."

The Warden patched them through and Draco's voice soon replied, "What's up Matt?" "We've got a demon in the sewers. The kind that turns into your worst fear. We need your firepower to deal with it." "Ok, I'm here with Goliath right now. We'll head over as soon as we can." Matt sighed as he realized something. "It's not likely to find much prey down here at least. Demon predators like high concentrations, not people who shoot back," he said and stopped as he saw the mutate's expression. "What?"

"There are people who live down here," said Talon, "People who could get easily scared by it. It could wipe them all out in one night." Matt gulped and commed Chris, "Hey, Chris, did you happen to see which way the Kryteer went?" "It went into one of the pipes," said Chris, "Could pop up anywhere." Matt sighed, his head starting to ache. "Why me? Could this night stink any worse? I half expect an old enemy to drop in..."

--

Not far away, a Quarrymen patrol had come across what looked to them like an alien pod. And for once, they were right, which would turn out to be a shame. The Quarrymen peered around the corner into the alley where the pod had landed. "I told you those gargoyles were aliens," said a rookie Quarryman. "Maybe, maybe not, whatever's in there has to at least be worth something, either to us or some scientist," said the squad's leader, "Open it up." Before anyone could do so, the pod opened and what appeared to be a mutant four-armed sun bear wearing black and white clothing and a green device on its belt buckle sprang out. It then shouted something alien at them and laughed loudly.

The Quarrymen stared at it. "What the hell?" said the leader. "That's not a gargoyle. What the hell, let's just grab it," he said and turned when he saw that nobody seemed intent on following. "What? He's just a fuzzy little shrimp." The 'fuzzy little shrimp' glared and opened its mouth. Four green tongues shot out and snared the leader's hammer. It brought it back where it was ground up and swallowed. "Hey! Give that back!" The creature grinned and said, "As you wish." It then spat out a large blob of goo that hit the ground in front of them and exploded. The others stared with mouths open. After a minute, their collective common sense came back from its extended holiday and they turned tail and fled.

A panel in the landing pod chimed and Omnirus's ships A.I commed him. "Sir, I strongly discourage this mission. The Empire still has search teams after you since your raid on their EXP troop quarters and that attempt on General Silvia." "Get your processor out of the mud," said Omnirus, "you computers are such utter bores. This planet can't have extraterrestrial contact seeing as how those humans didn't react when I criticized their fashion sense. I'm going to find me some fun." "My database indicates that the Empire do not obey NSC first contact regulations," said the A.I, "Also, there are several key reports on the local law enforcement that you should be aware of, more importantly the currently active NSC defense fort south of the city. Also sir, the battery in your translator is flat." "I can speak English without it," said Omnirus, "and I didn't come to this planet only for pleasure. Your readings said the target I'm after is here and I'm not budging until I find him." "Very well, sir. I suggest you start with that sewer cover," said the A.I, using the pod's sensors to 'see'.

Omnirus picked the manhole cover and crumpled into a ball before eating it. "If the Kryteer's down there, I better conserve my energy and have my selection ready if I run into it," he said, "Let's see if there are any gators down there." He then jumped into the manhole and into the city's underground labyrinth.

--

Matt looked up at the heavy duty looking blastdoor that apparently was the home of the majority of NYC's homeless. "Impressive," he said. Chris's team had been closer and were already trying to get by..."Gargoyles? These guys look familiar," said Matt, looking at the three gargoyles, one of who was trying to take Chris's rifle away. "You know about the gargoyles?" asked Talon. "Know about them?" said Matt, "I disabled a homicidal computer with them." Talon raised an eyebrow. "When you hang around me, you tend to hear a lot of crazy stories," said Matt. "Well, uh, these are clones of the gargoyles. They weren't very bright at first but they're improving. It seems that Hollywood's taking after Broadway in more ways than one."

"I think I'd best break this up, those MA5's are expensive," said Matt. As he approached, Chris finally lost his grip and ended up being tossed into Matt, much to the marine's amusement. "Chris....remind me to do something painful to them later...now please...GET OFF ME!" said Matt. "Easy fellas," said Talon, "They're friends." "Friends?" asked the one that looked like a blue version of Brooklyn. "Yes, Malibu, friends, they're here to help." Hollywood blinked and gave Chris back his rifle, "Sorry." Chris winced as he got up and took the rifle. "I really pity that Kryteer when he arrives," he said as Matt got up behind him and peered at his now-bent rifle. "If anyone asks, Stitch ate it," he said.

Then Goliath and Draco came around the corner. "It would seem we are just in time," said Goliath. "Ok, so where's this boogeyman thingie?" asked Draco. Suddenly the 'boogeyman' came out of another tunnel, in the form of a miniature frost giant. "You've got to be kidding me," said Matt, raising the wrecked gun out of reflex. The rest of the marines, especially the ones who had already met the Kryteer opened fire with everything till their guns ran dry. The Kryteer didn't seem the bit annoyed. If anything, it was smirking, Matt didn't like being smirked at. "Laugh this one of, tiny," he said and threw a plasma grenade. "Who around here's afraid of ice?" asked Talon. Matt glanced back at Draco, who had wrapped himself around Goliath's shoulders. "In my defense, it's not so much a personal fear as it is an instinctive one," said Draco.

The Kryteer snarled and focused on Matt, shapeshifting into a huge purple dragon. Matt stared horrified until a lightning bolt from Talon shook the Kryteer out of its attack. The Kryteer focused on the group and morphed into a grizzly bear the size of a tank. "Smeg!" yelled Matt, diving aside as it homed in on whoever was afraid the most of it. Draco stopped shivering when the Kryteer dropped the frost giant disguise. But now he was shivering again, only in a more focused area. Draco's nose twitched and he said, "I feel kinda fun-fun-AAAAHHH-CHOOOOO!" Draco's sneeze released an enormous fireball that fortunately didn't hit anyone but caused a lot of vapor to form. The Kryteer seemed confused. Usually it liked to pick off prey one at a time, so many fears, which to choose. "Let's just blast it," it heard from the annoying one that feared the dragon. It morphed its arm into a pulse cannon and shot the person into the wall before deciding it would kill the ones it didn't want.

Morph had been watching from behind. He saw that the battle wasn't going well, but he didn't want to face the puppet again. But then Draco's sneeze made him think about how much power potential he had. "If he could do something that big, than I can do it too." Morph raised his arms and called, "BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!" He paused and said, "Wait, wrong line, TRANS-MORPH-ATION!" Morph sprouted glowing green gem-like armor over his body as his eyes started glowing the same color. "PosiMorph!" he exclaimed before curling up into an armored ball and flying at the Kryteer. The Kryteer turned to face Morph, confused before recoiling. This new one stunk of poison. It morphed its arm into a blaster and fired a burst. PosiMorph flew around the blast and started firing small balls of green energy from the gem plates on his body. The Kryteer wailed. The positive energy balls shot through its body like hot ball bearings through butter. But what was worse for it was that now the weapon fire was no longer passing harmlessly through it, now it was hitting. PosiMorph bounced off the ceiling and slammed straight into the Kryteer. It wailed even louder as it was forced back into its original form. The cloud began to try to float away till a final burst from Morph ignited it in a blue fireball. Matt and a couple Marines slowly walked towards the scorched patch where it had been. "I think we got it," said Matt.

Meanwhile, Omnirus was watching through a grating. "Hmm, didn't see that coming. Oh well, I was hoping I would be able to get in on some of the action. This sewer seems a bit crowded though. Let's find some place with a little more fighting room." Omnirus looked up through the grating. Above was one of the shopping avenues that New York was famous for. Plenty of civilians, plenty of shields more like...

Goliath turned to look at PosiMorph, who had by then powered down. "It would seem that underneath his simplistic exterior is the spirit of a great warrior." "Hey guys, check this out," said Morph and he started rubbing his sides, producing a high squeaking sound. "Of course, you must realize that's a very thick exterior," said Matt. Morph kept on squeaking for about a minute before Matt said, "Please stop."

One of the Marines suddenly looked down at his wrist. "Sir? I think a clone did come through, it's up top." "That can't be right," said Matt, "We would have detected it before." Suddenly an explosion was heard topside, along with a couple of startled screams.

"Ok, I'm convinced," he said. The group ran for the nearest ladder. Matt climbed it first but as he was pulling the manhole cover away, something reached down and pulled him up through the hole before tossing him through the window of a car dealership.

"Well, well, look what the sewer rat dragged up." Matt wished he didn't recognize the voice, but it was very distinctive sounding. He looked to see an experiment-like creature with brown fur, four arms, green eyes with minus-shaped pupils, six small round ears, and a black and white vest and pants ensemble with a belt buckle that had the imaged of a green hourglass cracked perfectly in half. Matt pulled himself out of the large dent he'd afflicted on a Jaguar. "Erm…bill goes to the NSA," he said to the shocked couple before turning to face Omnirus. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?" said Omnirus. "Yeah, I guess you take your time in paybacks," said Matt, "Ghoulwyrm came after me almost as soon as we left the Sol system." "Payback? Nah, you didn't really have much of an opportunity to do anything to me last time. I'm mostly here for a little R&R. You know, ravaging and rampaging?"

"So, what brings you to NYC?" said Matt, watching as the rest of his team sneaked up behind the experiment. "Well, asides from testing my new powers here, I've heard there's a certain someone here whose A.I. could give me the kind of upgrade I need," said Omnirus. Matt glared. "Take your pick, I got two," he said coldly, "Of course if that lobotomizes me, my men may object." "Nah, not you, nor the brat either," said Omnrius as he wiped a paw on his vest, "But it's not really in your interest. Well, better start this game up." He reached down and twisted the dial on his belt. When an icon appeared, he pushed it down and disappeared in a flash of green light. When the light faded, he was replaced by a being that looked like it was made of magma-based crystals. The red rock-like substance covered most of its body, except his hands and feet, which glowed a bright yellow. "Is that Heatblast?" asked Morph. "Looks more like Diamondhead," said Draco. "Actually," said the being with a deep fiery voice, "I prefer to call this form Diamondblast." He then threw a mixture of flames and fiery crystals at the marines that were sneaking up on him.

The marines scattered to avoid being fried and impaled while Matt tossed a plasma orb in Diamondblast's face, to no effect. "Sir, you realize your target A.I must be dominant, do you sir?" said Omnirus's ship A.I in his ear. "Yeah, yeah," said Diamondblast, "I'm not interested in him right now. Just having a little fun." Diamondblast slammed a hand in the ground, causing a large wall of crystals to rise up like fire to keep anyone from running away. "Sir...I must remind you that the NSC armed forces have more then enough firepower to neutralize you permanently and it is a 98.7% chance that they have summoned re-enforcements from command by now," said the A.I in an annoyed tone. Organics were so irrational sometimes. "They can't send any to a civilian area," said Diamondblast, "especially one that currently thinks there's only one intelligent species in the universe."

A plasma blast hit Diamondblast in the back and threw him forward. He looked back to see Matt standing there. There was a slight red glint in his eyes. "Hmm, looks like your A.I. wants to come out and play," said Diamondblast, "Let him out, I'm all game." "Oh, I'm not that failed A.I, V-627...I'm worse then that, allow me to demonstrate..." he said before energizing one of the cars and sending it into Diamondblast's face. "Convinced?" said Draconus. To think, that idiot had fried his host's inhibitor. Ah well, now he could have fun himself. "This should be a good challenge," said Diamondblast as he converted his arms into flaming spikes. Suddenly a beeping sound caught his attention. He looked at the cracked Omnitrix symbol on his chest that was flashing red. "Oh man," he said before he reverted back to Omnirus.

Draconus just smirked, "You're tougher then you look, peewee. Let's see just how tough." And with that, he fired a dark magic burst. Omnirus rolled out of the way before the blast could hit him. He was about to chew up a hubcap for ammo when Goliath and Talon appeared. "Matthew, what is the meaning of this?" demanded Goliath. Draconus turned and looked. "Sorry, Mr. Lynch isn't home, could I take a message?" he said before tossing another blast. "He's been possessed," determined Goliath, "we must help him regain his control. Perhaps a shock to his system will help." "Hope this doesn't make things worse," said Talon as he fired a lightning bolt at Matt. Draconus just block the burst with a plasma shield. "Naughty, I never invited you to play," he said, sending a seeker energy blast in Talon's direction.

Before the blast could hit, Morph jumped in front with his shield in front of him. The blast actually ricocheted of the shield and hit Draconus. "Sorry," said Morph. Draconus glared. "Oh, you will be you little mutant." he said, sending a wave of explosive plasma in Morph's direction. Morph activated the spinning mechanism on the shield, which diverted the wave away from him. "I wish Chip was here," said Morph, "He'd know how to fix Matt's inhibitor thingy." "Don't you possess the ability to assume your clan members' forms and powers?" asked Goliath. "Oh yeah," said Chip and he morphed into Chip. Draconus's eyes widened. "Not this time," he said and fired a blast into the ground in front of Morph, a cloud of dust rising between them. As he ran, he paused next to Omnirus. "I'm feeling generous, you kill em," he said before transforming and flying off.

Omnirus shook his head to get the dizziness out. "Hey! We weren't finished yet!" he called. He noticed the others looking at him and he muttered to himself, "Not enough time to take to the sky, guess I'll have to go with old-fashioned speed." He activated his belt buckle and selected a new form. A flash of green light later, and he had become a wolf-like alien wearing a black and white armor. He had reptilian features, particularly the blue and black-striped tail and his digitigrade legs with balls attached to the feet. "Ok, that's XLR8 and Benwolf," said Draco, "So that must make him..." "XLRWolf," finished the transformed Omnirus, his voice now a feral growl with a slight buzz behind it.

Draconus, in dragon form, settled on a rooftop to watch the fight and to be in a good position to kill the winners. He was silently impressed with Omnirus's transformation. "Almost a shame I got to kill him, almost," he said to himself. Draconus smirked and tuned in mentally to hear the now conscious Matt, 'They're gonna kick your butt, you realize that. Hell, you lost to em once, don't you remember?' "I think they'll be too distracted to go after me," said Draconus. 'Oh no? What about the monster they're fighting?' Draconus peered over to see XLRWolf shooting up the side of the building. "Son of a...Invitation only," he yelled, blasting the wall just in front of Omnirus, sending rubble towards the mutant. XLRWolf responded by opening his visor and then splitting his muzzle apart. A sonic howl blast the rubble out of the way and still made if far enough to knock Draconus back.

"Had enough?" said Draconus. "I'm just getting warmed up," said XLRWolf and he started running around Draconus at top speed. In a few seconds, a miniature twister started forming. Then XLRWolf started firing his sonic howl which reverberated throughout the funnel with increasing amplification. Draconus dug in his claws into the rooftop until Omnirus slowed down a bit then grabbed him and pulled him up nose to nose. "Was that little breeze your best? Want to see MINE?" he said and threw him into the now-abandoned car dealership before firing a plasma burst in. It was lucky the dealership's owners had ran when the fight had started as the blast caused all three floors of the building to explode, turning the building into an inferno. Omnirus groaned as he got up. He had changed back after being launched into the alley behind the dealership and he felt rather sore from the explosion. "This guy's berserk, even for my standards," he grumbled, "I better wing it out of here once I recharge."

Draconus just stared at the fire, waiting for Omnirus to re-emerge. He had no doubt that the little experiment had survived somehow. Experiments could survive vacuums so a simple explosion would not be much trouble. He turned as he sensed the gargoyle, the mutate, Draco and Morph come up behind him. "Volunteers? Usually I have to chase my victims," he said casually as if he hadn't just gutted a building. "Joyride's over," snarled Talon, electricity crackling in his fist, "You're going back to where you belong now!" "Oh my dear fuzzball, but I am," taunted Draconus, "I am level 12 combat rated. You're nothing but a bug to me," igniting a plasma orb in response.

Suddenly an odd buzzing sound caught their ears, something like a cross between a helicopter and a flying wasp. They looked to see a strange insectoid alien with a white underbelly and a black black with perfectly symmetrical green circuit lines fly away from the ruined car dealership. Draconus followed their gaze. "Harder to kill then a space weevil, I like his style. Now...where were we?" he said, turning back. "Ah yes, I'm not going back into the back of that weakling's mind. I'll kill you all long before that."

Suddenly a real helicopter's engine was heard and they looked to see a SWAT chopper appear. "This is the NYPD," said a voice through a bullhorn, "Surrender at once and put your hands on the ground." The pilots, who were watching the strange creatures on the rooftop, didn't see the even stranger creature flying right at their chopper. Draconus readied a plasma orb to destroy the chopper when the creature hit the chopper in the side and...splatted? However, instead of falling off, it quickly covered all of the chopper, giving it a black and green, high-tech look, along with four insectoid legs. "Now who's got the big guns?" said a whiny nasal voice that sounded like it was coming from a walkie-talkie. Cannons that didn't exist moments before appeared and started firing.

Draconus barely raised a plasma shield in time, holding it until whatever the upgraded guns were firing became exhausted. "I said GET LOST!" yelled Draconus and only a shot from Talon avoided the SWAT chopper and its pilots meeting the same fate as the car dealership. The two pilots had no idea what was going on and they were very unnerved to see that the helicopter no longer responded to their commands. "Keep in down in their, or you'll be the next ammo," said the voice from before.

Meanwhile, Goliath was saying, "This is madness, we have to save those pilots. Talon, Draco, you take care of that. I and Morph will keep Draconus from destroying anything more." Draconus heard that and smirked. "Good, let's see how long you last...in seconds," he said, charging a plasma orb in each fist and throwing them. "Is there any form you have that could put Matthew back in control?" asked Goliath. "Oh yeah," said Morph and morphed into a slim purple dragon-like creature. Morph in Jekyll form shot Draconus right in the back, making him crumple like someone had clocked him on the head. The rest of the marines from Matt's team aimed at him while another fiddled with Matt's wristcomp. "Ok, he's good, he'll have one helluva headache...uh oh," said the marine as distant sirens were heard, backup for the chopper which had been abandoned by Omnirus and whose pilots were looking at the armed personnel in shock.

"Where'd Stinkgrade go?" asked Draco. Talon raised an eyebrow, "Stinkgrade?" "Well, he's part Stinkfly and part Upgrade," explained Draco. Talon's expression didn't change. "I'll explain later." Omnirus was watching from above, merged to one of the air conditioning vents on a roof. "Do not feel bad sir, the Silvia and Draconus A.I's were purpose-made to deal with things a million times worse then you," said the ship A.I. "They'll be harder to extract then I thought," said Stinkgrade, "I'll have to wait till I'm stronger before I try to rip them out. But I might as well cause a little more havoc before leaving." He cranked the AC vent to full blast, becoming a powerful sucking turbine. The sudden suction caught everyone off surprise. Morph, being the lightest was drawn straight into the fan. His gooey body jammed it enough to make it stop turning. Seeing as there was no more use of it, Stinkgrade went into the wiring and traveled down them and out of sight.

At this, Matt opened his eyes. "Who won?" he asked weakly. "Uh, Morph did," said Talon, pointing to the two dozen tiny copies of Morph that popped out of the AC unit and were running around. "That's hardly the weirdest thing I've seen," he said, shifting back to human form. "You never met Chupy..."

Not far away, several Quarrymen watched from the shadows, one holding a video camera. "Did you get all that?" said the leader. "As much as I could," said the Quarryman holding the camera, "Not sure what all we can do with this film. The only destruction was being carried out by that dragon thing and the weirder alien monster." "The gargoyles were there and we know not all gargoyles look the same, maybe the dragon was one of em?" said the leader. "I don't know, I've never seen a gargoyle throw fireworks like that before," said the cameraman. "Who would know?" dismissed the leader.

Matt had gone back to the base to have his inhibitor checked out properly by the real Chip while the others were shown the Labyrinth and the rest of the Mutates and clones. "So, you guys were created by this creepy geneticist named Sevarius who used to work for Xanatos during the Mutate project and also created a clone of Goliath named Thailog who commissioned him to make these clones," said Draco, "Is that about right?" "Yes," said Maggie, "But Xanatos has been trying to make amends for the first incident. He's hired Dr. Goldblum to find a cure for us." "And you are not an original member of the Mutates, but mutated yourself so you can protect your parents?" asked Draco to Sharon. "Yes," said Sharon, "I have no intention of using this power more than necessary." "Huh," said Morph, "You know, with your heritage, I'm surprised you didn't end up looking like a snow leopard." Draco slapped him in the back of the head and said, "Snow leopards are from Central Asia, not Japan, you dolt." Chris nodded. "Maybe we could get the NSC to give some data to Goldblum, help out a bit," he said.

"So what about this Omnirus creature?" asked Talon. "Well," said Lilo, "That's hard to explain. A friend of ours has a device attached to him called the Omnitrix that contains the DNA of all these different aliens. He got infected with a virus designed to turn him into an experiment, but the Omnitrix's energy mutated it and created Omnirus from him." "His Omnitrix was cracked during our first fight with him," said Draco, "evidently, it allows him to make combinations of Ben's available forms at the time. We better keep an eye out for him from now on."

--

Meanwhile, in the suburbs of the city, another spacecraft had landed, albeit a lot more subtlety than the first ones. It was a small scout ship, built for stealth. The first two beings that disembarked from the ship somewhat resembled the robots that were with Romanov, only better disguised as humans. The next two were different. One was humanoid in all respects except for the fact that her head more closely resembled that of Angel except with purple fur. This soon changed when it shifted to that of a human woman with long black hair in a ponytail. The other was more alien-looking. It mostly covered itself with a black fedora and trench coat. It retracted the six spine-like appendages growing from his back out of sight, but it could not hide the black face underneath the hat nor the five red eyes in an irregular pattern, a large mouth full of sharp black fangs, the larger eye on the left side of its head that had a slit-like pupil, or the two ears that were joined at the base on the right side. As long as one didn't take a hard look at his head or his sleeves, he might be able to pass a short black person.

"New York, why does it always have to be New York?" grumbled the black creature with a harsh contorted voice. "The setting isn't important, NegaMorph," said the woman, "Omnirus is out there somewhere and we must capture him. He's too much of a loose cannon to let roam free. He depleted an entire squadron of EXP mutants before we could chase him off." "You don't need to remind me, Silvia," said NegaMorph, "I'm the one who kept him from draining you as well, remember?" "Clearly," said Silvia, "Omnirus shows no loyalty to Hamsterviel and is therefore a liability. We shall search this city and neutralize him. Since the Traveler and his crew are present, as well as unusual local authority, we'll have to keep a low profile. We should probably ask locals if they've seen him." "Easy for you to say," said NegaMorph as he pulled up the collar of his coat, "You've got the face that can ask people questions without them running away."

* * *

There's another chapter. Looks like trouble's landed in town. You can expect to see Omnirus again before this story's over. And the gang will eventually run into Silvia and NegaMorph. When will that be? Wouldn't you like to know? By the way, Diamonblast, XLRWolf, and Stinkgrade's design are based on the hybrid pictures of the Omnitrix aliens that were 'revealed' with the DNA codes that came with the second series of the Ben 10 action figures. You could probably find pictures of them on deviantART if you looked for them. The next chapter might take a while, but it'll extremely interesting. Keep an eye out for it and please review.


	5. Fostering

**Chapter 5: Fostering**

Nightfall was setting in a small unused alley. A stray cat was sniffing around for something to eat for dinner. Then a vibration in the air caught its eyes. Suddenly a shimmering black portal appeared in the air. The cat hissed and ran away. Out of the portal stumbled a young human girl. Not child-young, but only 13 years old. Her clothes were of a sort of gothic punk style, mostly a black t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, green cargos, and black shoes. She had a few bits of jewelry like a pewter fang bracelet on her right wrist and an eye-shaped earring on her left ear. Her short red hair had black highlights and partially obscured her face. The spiderbot drone watching from a fire escape zoomed in but Warden had no interest. With a squeak the drone moved onwards in its patrol.

On the city limits, Warden was running his usual scans when to his surprise one of the city drones reported a dimensional breach. What was more fascinating was that the portal's destination was not in the NSC files. He filed it away, there were plenty of patrols there and he would hear anything of interest on the police band.

The girl looked around and said, "Well, this looks like New York, but not my New York." She put her hands in her pockets and said, "Oh well, didn't really want to go back there anyways." She strolled out of the alley and seamlessly blended with the pedestrians on the sidewalks.

Matt drove his warthog through the streets, heading for the Eyrie building. He'd chosen a detour through Central Park and so saw another of the Quarrymen public rallies. Some of Castaway's guards had blocked the street. "Hey, loony man, move it or become my new hood ornament!" Matt yelled, not in the mood. One of them handed Matt a pamphlet and said, "You look like the type of muscle we need to rid the city of these monsters. Consider this for the safety of your friends and family." Matt looked at it...and ate it. "Nah, I'd rather eat Pleakley's curry," he said and drove by, cackling at the Quarrymen's confused faces.

Matt parked his car in front of the Eyrie Building, noting Elisa's car was also parked there. He whistled to himself as he walked inside, showed his pass to the guard, and got aboard the elevator. The lift finally opened in the castle level and Matt got out, looking around. "Hello?" he called and jumped a foot in the air as Owen said, "Yes?" "Do you often do that to people?" asked Matt. "Not really, just the ones who should be paying more attention to their surroundings," said Owen in a bored tone. However, Matt could detect an underline of amusement in his voice. "I presume you are looking for Detective Maza, she is in the kitchen." he said. Matt nodded and walked off...before coming back. Owen sighed and pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "I knew that," said Matt, childishly.

Matt walked into the kitchen and saw Elisa enjoying a glass of Coca-Cola. "Hey there," said Matt as he helped himself to a glass, "Night off?" "Yep," said Elisa, "By the way, Angela asked me to make sure you were here, but now you're here, it's kinda moot." Matt shrugged. "Yeah, woulda been sooner but the local moron convention's in the park," he said taking a sip. "So...why does Angela want me here?" "Not sure, but she wanted all you guys to come," said Elisa. "So, uh, how're the experiments adjusting to the castle?" asked Matt. Suddenly they heard loud barking and Bronx ran by with Morph riding his back crying, "Yip-yip, yap-yap, yup-yup, yukko!" Matt and Elisa watch Morph and Bronx pass and Elisa commented dryly, "You mean how's the castle adjusting to the experiments?" Matt nodded. "That's what I meant, I'm glad Xanatos heeded the coffee warning," he said.

Out in the courtyard, two female gargoyles were alighting on the cobblestones. One was Angela and the other was a gargoyle that resembled her only with red hair, blue skin, and wore jewelry. "I don't see what all this excitement's over," said the red-head, "if you've seen one human, you've seen them all." "But not all of them are human, mother," said Angela, "I'd tell you more, but it's sort of a surprise." Matt walked out with Elisa. "For the last time, who is it I'm meeting and why do I need a gun?" he said, annoyed. Matt then noticed the two gargoyles. "Matt," said Angela in a cheerful voice, "I want to introduce you to my mother, Demona." Demona gave a forced smile, which seemed to be mostly for showing off her fangs. Matt stepped back a bit at the fangs. "Erm, Captain Lynch. CPS PMC, pleasure to meet you," he said offering his hand to shake.

Demona gave Matt an annoyed look and said, "Angela, I hope this trip was just so I could meet another human friend of yours." Suddenly Bronx ran out into the courtyard, Morph still riding like a cowboy. Bronx saw Demona and came to an abrupt halt. Morph was thrown off by the inertia and flew over, landing right on top of Demona's face. Matt winced and looked around. "Hey, I reckon that room looks strong, if we run now we can get under cover," he said. Demona made many muffled yells as she tried to remove Morph from her face. Morph was a little sticky at the moment, so she had to pull hard to get him off. Humorously, the last part that came off was his lips, which were stuck onto hers. With a final yank, Morph came off, only now he was wearing Demona's tiara. Morph noticed the new decoration and said, "Ah, you shouldn't." He abruptly found himself being held over the side of the castle and screaming, "Oh, you shouldn't! Oh, you shouldn't!"

Matt readied a plasma orb. "Ok, put the blob on the floor and not the ground floor please." He thought and added, "Morph, give Demona back her tiara. It doesn't suit you." Demona observed Matt's plasma orb with interest. She then took a proper look at the white slug-like blob she was holding. "I can see why you wanted me to see them," said Demona to Angela. Matt sighed. "I'm not sure what kind of comment that is, but give Morph back," he said. "Very well, as soon he gives me back..." Suddenly Demona noticed Morph was gone, along with the rest of her jewelry. However, he didn't go far. He was posing in front of a small mirror while wearing Demona's jewelry, "I feel pretty, oh so pretty, oh so pretty and witty and-" Matt sighed. "I give up, just don't cause permanent damage, Ma'am," said Matt, giving up, "Let's go for a walk, screaming gives me a migraine."

Matt and Elisa decided to walk down the street until they were sure Demona would be done with Morph. "Is Morph always like that?" asked Elisa. Matt shrugged, "Is the pope Catholic?" he said, getting into the elevator. "How do you put up with him so much?" asked Elisa. "Mostly I've learned to expect the oddest from him," said Matt, "And as long as he doesn't damage anything, I can ignore it. Most of the time." The lobby of the building was quiet. "Looks like a quiet ni.,..no...I won't say it," Matt said.

The two of them walked outside. "So, I take it Demona has a long history with you guys," said Matt. "Much longer than you think," said Elisa, "She's been an arch enemy of ours for a long time but I think Angela's visits are starting to improve her." "How bad an arch enemy?" Matt asked and listened as Elisa explained about the Praying Gargoyle incident and how Demona had petrified the whole city and gone on a little demolition spree. "Sounds like she has issues," Matt said. "Well, since she's seen the worst of humans over the last thousand years, she isn't all the willing to cut them a break," said Elisa.

Matt nodded. "I can imagine," he said, "The last woman I met tricked me into listening and then...well...she didn't fight fair, was called Megan." "Hmm, not much luck with the ladies aren't you? Matt?" Matt had stopped talking and was staring straight ahead. Elisa turned to look in the same direction. Matt was staring right at a red-headed girl about 13 years old wearing gothic punk clothes. Her red-irised eyes were looking back Matt with a notable amount of dread. Suddenly she turned around and started running in the opposite direction.

"HEY YOU!" yelled Matt, bounding over and grabbing her. "I thought you were dead...hands where I can see em please," he said before turning to Elisa. "Detective Maza? Meet Megan Roph." Elisa looked confused. "Wait, the girl who suckered you before was only a kid?" she said. Something in her voice made it obvious she was trying not to laugh. "You've got it all wrong," said Megan, "I've just been on the wrong end of a lot of sticks. I'm not that bad, honest." "Yea, you used illegal genetic mods to upgrade yourself and paid the price," he said, "You're lucky I found you and not NegaMorph. Just your name makes him twitch." Megan sighed, "Don't make me do it." Matt looked puzzled. "Do what?" he said and doubled up as Megan repeated a painful part of history. "Oh...that," said Matt, doubling up as Megan ran off again. This time, Elisa couldn't contain it as she broke out laughing. "It's...not...funny," squeaked Matt. "Sorry," said Elisa, "Sounds like that girl's caused a lot of trouble." "And now she's gonna be in a lot of trouble as Matt straightened up and ran after her.

Draco and Chip ran out of the Eyrie building in time to see Matt go round the corner after Megan. "What's going on?" said Draco. Elisa sighed, "Matthew met an old friend, Megan I think." "Megan's here?" said Draco surprised, "I thought she was banished to another dimension." "We need to catch her," said Chip and in a motion too fast for Elisa to see, Chip was suddenly riding on Draco's back, Draco wearing a saddle and bridle and Chip wearing a fox hunter's outfit. "The game is afoot!" called Chip. "A foot? I thought we were after Megan," said Draco. "Talley-ho!" called Chip and kicked his spurs into Draco. "YEOW!" Draco bolted down the sidewalk with Elisa right behind him.

Meanwhile, Matt skidded round a corner to see Megan going into an alley. "FREEZE!" he yelled, aiming his blaster and letting loose a few rounds that narrowly missed, but then again they were just to warn her. Megan waved her hand, causing a large black wall to rise up behind her. "Go away!" she yelled and kept on running. Matt had a few tricks of his own, throwing a grenade that blazed with energy, dispelling the field. "Always thought I'd use it on Nega," Matt wondered before running round a corner to see Megan hauling an iron bar from a trashbin in his face. Matt raised his hand on reflex, it morphing to dragon form and cutting the bar in two. Megan gasped and said, "You've modified since last time." "That's right," said Matt as he started preparing another plasma orb. "Well so have I!" she said and her eyes flashed red for a second. Suddenly several angry-looking rats appeared and swarmed at Matt.

Matt blasted the first few and pulled out his ion blade for the last ones. He put the blade away and turned to see Megan heading down the alley towards the park, the Quarrymen were there. "MEGAN! WAIT! DON'T GO THAT WAY!" he yelled, morphing to full dragon to fly after her.

Meanwhile, NegaMorph was walking out of a bar, scratching a couple things of a checklist. "Huh, why does this have to be so difficult?" he grumbled, "How hard could it be to run into an alien hybrid in this city?" He heard something coming from the right and saw two familiar figures heading towards him. "What the-" That was all he had time to say before they both collided into him. Matt shook the stars away first and looked to see NegaMorph. "Oh for heaven's sake, I can't escape you," he said and blasted NegaMorph in the face with some plasma fire. "Lynch? What in blazes are you doing-" Suddenly he noticed the other person who ran into him. "YOU!" he yelled angrily. "You!" she peeped frightfully.

Matt glared at them and then whimpered. His wing was bent funny. "Dammit, sprained it, oh hell," he said seeing where they'd landed in view of. They were right behind the Quarrymen's rally stage, though NegaMorph and Megan were unaware of that. "What are you doing here?" said NegaMorph, his tone sounding more like an angry parent than an enraged monster. "I wasn't going to stay in that world forever," snapped Megan. "I put you there for your own good!" said NegaMorph. "You put me there so I wouldn't be in your way!" said Megan. "Erm guys?" said Matt, looking around fearfully. He couldn't change back in case someone saw. If the Quarrymen found out they'd take steps to catch him...and his friends. He couldn't radio for help as his radio didn't appear in dragon form. "Guys?" he said a bit louder. "I don't know how you managed to get out of there," said NegaMorph, "but I'm gonna make sure you have proper supervision this time." Megan's eyes flashed as she shifted to her hybrid alien form. "I'm not going anywhere with either of you!" she shouted.

Matt finally banged their heads together. "GUYS?" He yelled and then went, "oops." "Hey...who was that?" said a faint voice. "What was that for?" demanded NegaMorph before Matt covered his main mouth. "Guys," whispered Matt, "there are a bunch of creeps we really don't want to-" "It came from back there!" called another voice. "Find us," finished Matt in a dejected tone. Two Quarrymen kicked the door open, holding particle rifles and regretted it as Matt tossed a table in their faces. "Time to leave, now!" he yelled, walking out into the barrels of three more rifles. "Oh, arse," he said glumly.

"What is it?" demanded their leader from behind. "Gargoyles, I think," said one of them, "Really odd-looking ones." Matt glared. "You watch it, ya ku klux wannabe," he said angrily. "Don't just gauk at them, capture them," came the command. Matt quickly used his tail to knock the gunmen onto their backs. "We've got to get out of here now!" said Matt. "What's the big deal?" said NegaMorph, "They're just humans." A blast went through the wall next to NegaMorph's head. "Yeah, humans with assault class weaponry," retorted Matt.

A couple were advancing on Megan. "Hey! Back off!" she yelled and tried to fire a blast from her hand. The blast missed by several inches. "Oh come on! Why can't it work right?" she complained. Matt jumped at the men and knocked them down, kicking one into his fellow. "Go, let's go now!" he said before a third Quarryman hit him with a shock hammer. NegaMorph was about to attack when he heard a cry of "Get off of me!" NegaMorph's tail eye spotted Megan being grabbed by two Quarrymen. A third one zapped her with a hammer, causing her to scream and pass out. "Megan!" called NegaMorph and was about to go over there when he noticed all the Quarrymen surrounding him. Matt came to for long enough to see the Quarrymen swarm NegaMorph. "Dammit...the one time I root for you..." he managed before passing out. NegaMorph was pretty sure that he could beat these thugs, but there looked too many to handle at once. "You've made a big mistake tonight," he said as he extended his dorsal spines into wings and took off.

--

Matt came to in a dark room. "Ouch...my head," he said and tried to get up to see he was shackled. He tried to pull the chain apart but got a shock from it. "At least they're not complete morons," he muttered. Matt looked around and spotted Megan also chained to the wall. She was still in hybrid form, but looked very worn-out from her capture, judging by the way she was breathing. "Hey, kid," he said. There wasn't a response at first. "HEY, no sleeping, wakey-wakey," he said in as annoying a tone as he could manage. Megan groaned and barely opened her eyes. "Where are we?" she moaned. "I don't know, probably Psychoville, have you heard? Castaway's the mayor," he said, grinning. He checked his wing and winced, it still hurt. "Who's Castaway?" "From what I've heard, a super-deranged nut who doesn't care much for sentient beings outside his species," said Matt. Megan moaned and said, "Why do I always end up with these people?" "I dunno, your charming peoples skills?" said Matt, icily. "You really don't have to kick me, asking sometimes works." "Not in my experience," said Megan, turning away, "What I've learned is that the only person you can depend on is yourself. Most people eventually turn on you."

"My crew haven't." said Matt simply with a sigh. The door opened shortly after. Matt looked up to see a man with blue eyes and blonde hair. Matt blinked and said, "You must be-" "The mayor of Psychoville," finished Castaway, looking annoyed. "Oh, you heard that, might have known." Matt wasn't finished. If he was gonna die, he'd raise Castaway's blood pressure a few points before he did. "I'd like to complain about your guesthouse. The room service sucks." he said. Megan giggled a bit at that. "We're hardly of the disposition to be fair to you gargoyles," said Castaway. "We're not gargoyles," said Matt, "Get it through your disordered brain." "Hmm, you may be right. I haven't seen a gargoyle like you and your companion tried something strange before you woke," said Castaway thoughtfully. "What was that?" asked Matt who was looking at Megan. "She tried to assume a human form, apparently she thought she would be able to slip out. Too bad the shackles are programmed to shock at the detection of any muscle movement."

He turned to Megan and said, "I presume you're in league with the Demon. She has the same shifting power as you. Tell me what you know of her." "I don't know you who you're talking a-" Castaway slapped her cheek and said, "Don't lie to me, changeling. The human guise you tried to dawn may seemed young, but I reckon you're older than you look. Now tell me about the Demon." "I don't know your-" Castaway slapped her again. "There are more painful ways of extracting the truth from a monstrosity like you," said Castaway, disgust lining his face.

Matt glared. "She doesn't know anything you fucking asshole!" he yelled. "Playing ignorant doesn't work on me," said Castaway and she yanked one of Megan's dreadlock tentacles. She cried out in pain as he threatened to tug it off. "You will spill your guts, demon. One way or another." He let go and walked out of the room. Megan seemed to collapse on herself as she started sobbing.

Matt snarled angrily and just for a second something like a black mist flowed over him. "That...coward," he said coldly before shuddering as the mist vanished "No...not even on him. "Megan...it'll be ok..." he said as kindly as he could. "They always hate me," sobbed Megan, "They always think I'm a freak." Despite the large amount of trouble she has caused for him, Matt did remember that Megan was still a child, one who apparently had a rougher life than he had thought before. "Hey, at least you're not being chased by a small army," he said cheerfully, "Buck up, kid. I don't hate you. I wanna arrest you but I don't hate you and in my book, Castaway is the freak, not you." Megan looked at Matt, tears streaming from the five eyes on her face and the one to the left of it. "It's hopeless, isn't it? We're not getting out of here." Matt sighed. Should he lie? Hell, he couldn't see a way out in one piece without serious backup. No. "We'll be fine, I can't wait till my crew burst in here. We can play, 'guess if Castaways fireproof', you'll love it."

NegaMorph flapped his wings until he stopped in an alley to catch his breath. "Those guys look like a bunch of creeps," he muttered to himself, "Lynch, I could care less about, but if anyone's disciplining Megan, it's going to be me. But I'll need backup to get to her." NegaMorph looked around out of the alley. Going to the NYPD wouldn't work, he'd need alternate help. He turned to see Draco, still being ridden by Chip, come round the corner, Draco complaining about Chip's spurs. "Ok, didn't expect that," said NegaMorph. "Whoa, my faithful stead," said Chip as he pulled back on the reins. Draco looked like he had enough, "Chip...GET OFF OF ME!" Draco bucked forward and threw Chip into a wall. NegaMorph rolled his eyes. "Better then nothing," he muttered and walked forward.

Chip stood up a bit shakily and noticed NegaMorph. He checked to see if his visual receptors were damaged by the crash. But when he confirmed they weren't, he said, "NegaMorph? You're here too?" "Apparently," said NegaMorph sarcastically. Then Elisa caught up with them. She panted and said, "Next time, I think I'll call a taxi." Then she noticed NegaMorph and said, "What is that thing?" "Would you believe Megan's uncle?" said Draco. NegaMorph sighed, "Great, who's she?" "Our new friend," said Draco. He paused as he heard the flapping of wings. "And it seems you're about to meet even more of them."

Then Demona and Angela alighted on one end of the alley and Goliath and Kala on the other end. Kala, when she saw NegaMorph glared. "What's he doing here?" "Do I know you?" asked NegaMorph as he looked at Kala. The voice definitely rang a bell, and the coloration and antennas quickly filled in the rest. "Kala? Is that you?" Kala strode over and picked up NegaMorph, eyes glowing red. "WHERE…IS...MATTHEW?" she snarled. NegaMorph wasn't very fazed, but he was impressed, "It's you alright. Interesting new look, it suits you. Whatever it is you are now." Kala growled and NegaMorph, "Yes, I should keep it to the point. Matt and Megan were kidnapped by a couple of creeps in the park. They had some sort of electric hammer."

Goliath snarled this time. "Quarrymen, does Castaway's madness know no bounds?" NegaMorph looked around at the gargoyles and asked, "What exactly are these things? Gargoyles or something?" "As a matter of fact, yes," said Demona, stepping forward. "Demona," growled Goliath. "Goliath," said Demona in a more civil tone. "What mischief are you planning tonight?" demanded Goliath. "None, my plans were meeting our daughter's new 'friends', but it appears that it just got more interesting."

Angela saw it wise to intervene to keep the two from fighting any further. She approached NegaMorph and Kala and asked, "Do you know what happened to Matt?" NegaMorph sighed, "Last I saw, Captain Lynch and Megan were swarmed by those morons, I dunno what'll happen to em but I bet they're not enjoying it."

Elsewhere, Matt was trying to keep Megan calmed when the door opened again. He looked up to see Castaway with two Quarrymen thugs holding hammers. "Hey there, is it time for the drum solo already?" he said, annoyingly. Castaway actually had to grab the guy on the left. The poor guy had been the guard and had been witness to Matt's previous strategy of blood pressure rising of singing as badly as possible, it had been 200% successful. "Your guy looks a bit twitchy, might wanna calm him down a bit," said Matt, grinning. "That might be advisable," said Castaway, "seeing how he's going to be assisting with your interrogation." Matt winced. "D'oh," he said and looked back up, "You know dude, the aim of interrogation is not to kill the guy, he might." "I don't think that will be an issue," said Castaway, "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that torture is more satisfying than straight-forward killing."

Matt blanched. "You're cuckoo, totally fruit loop," he said in shock. Sure Matt had met his selection of evil geniuses and psychos, but not both in the same package before. "I've heard them all before," said Castaway, "but I'd be more interested in hearing something else from you. Such as where the rest of your clan is." "Don't have a clan, got me a starship instead, they're more fun," said Matt casually. Castaway laughed and said, "And they call me the crazy one." The Quarrymen charged up their hammers and Castaway said, "Now try to tell me a whole truth before I have them recharge your diseased brain." "I am. I can even tell you where to point your telescope and if you torture me, you'll just be inviting a world of hurt from my bosses. Heard of the NSC Special ops division?" he said and after a second said, "Of course not, you're still alive." he added with perfect sincerity. "Sir, this creature and the wench don't match normal gargoyle descriptions," said one of the Quarrymen, "Perhaps they are aliens." Castaway laughed at this. "Please, you've been playing too much Halo. There's no such thing as aliens." At this Matt started laughing. "Oh boy, are you in for the shock of the century when my crew find you." Castaway looked annoyed and said, "I think I've had enough of this thing's cheek. Let's remind who's in power here."

Matt yelled as Castaway took a hammer, charged it and touched it to Matt's injured wing, making the dragon hybrid roar in pain. "That was a slight tap," said Castaway, "A harder blow would hurt a lot more. Now tell me where the gargoyles nest." "In...your butt," said Matt weakly. Castaway sighed...then swung the hammer like a baseball bat into Matt's chest. Matt roared in pain as the electricity surged through his body. "We can do this until sunrise if necessary," said Castaway. "Good...sunrise'll...prove it...you idiot," he said, spitting blood out.

Meanwhile, the others had approached the Quarrymen's quarters. "I had a feeling they'd be here," said Elisa. "But they could have taken them to a more secure place," said Demona. She used a tracking spell to lead them to where Megan would be, using the closest thing they had to Megan. "Can I have my hand back?" asked NegaMorph. "You know you could have just taken a tooth," said Chip to Draco. "Totally worth it," said Draco.

A couple of guards wandered past. "I was getting sick of hearing the freaky gargoyles screams." said one. The other nodded. "Yeah. Castaway's not letting this one escape like the big one did." "I wouldn't say that," said a voice before the two of them got a tazer shock to the neck. "What do you know," said Chip as they fell over, "It works on robots and humans." NegaMorph glared. "But now, we can't ask where they've got Megan," he said, kicking one who muttered in its sleep. "My partner was held captive here before," said Elisa, "I'm willing to bet that they've got them in the same place." Draco looked over at Elisa. "Did he say where?"

--

Matt muttered incoherently after at least the 6th stunning. He was sure a rib was cracked, if he'd been in human form, he'd be dead. "I see morons," he muttered rudely at Castaway. "We're getting nowhere with this guy," said one of the Quarrymen. "Clearly he is capable of withstanding torture to himself," said Castaway, "But what about torture to someone he knows." The three men's eyes shifted to Megan, who suddenly looked very scared. Matt muttered something and Castaway leaned closer. "Do that...even think of hurting my friends and nothing in this universe or the next will stop me ripping your heart out." he said loud enough for all to hear.

"So she is your friend," said Castaway, "Perhaps she does have useful information. Or at least holds the key to the information you have." "Did you hear the part about heart removal?" said Matt coldly. Suddenly to a part of Matt's mind, letting loose some dark magic to vaporize Mr. Castaway seemed a very good idea indeed. "Didn't you say the female didn't know anything?" asked one of the Quarrymen. "True, but a surge of electricity might loosed one useful thing. But when morning comes, we'll smash their stone husks to rubble," said Castaway, "Shouldn't be long now." Matt began laughing coldly. "Boy, are you in for a shock," he said horribly and began singing, "I know something you don't know..." "Perhaps just one more jolt, to knock him out," said Castaway.

Suddenly the alarms started going off. "Oh, what now?" he snapped. "I did warn you...the Spec ops are coming to get you...WHEEEE!" said Matt happily. "Ugh, why can't things roll smoothly for once?" groaned Castaway. "We finally capture a pair of gargoyles freak and then we have intruders. Perhaps we could use the young one as a trading chip."

Matt's eyes went white at this and the black mist covering returned. With no apparent effort he ripped his manacles apart, ignoring the shock before pushing a guard through the brick ceiling with a bone-crushing uppercut. The other guard swiped with his hammer, but Matt simply grabbed the hammer and swung both hammer and user into the wall next to Megan. Megan reached down with her tail and grabbed the keys from the guard's belt. She quickly brought it up and used it to unlock her shackles. Her attention then shifted to Matt. From the look of it, he was apparently under the influence of dark magic. Megan muttered a few words and then gestured towards Matt, who was about to slice Castaway's chest open. Matt paused and his eyes faded back to normal as the mist disappeared.

He seemed shocked for a second to see Castaway in his hand. "I warned you, but I don't believe children should see violence," he said to Castaway, baring his fangs, "So you get lost. Next time you hurt my companions to get my cooperation, you're dead," and pushed Castaway through the flimsy wooden door. "Ladies first," he said politely to Megan.

Megan quickly ran out and almost right into Elisa. "Megan?" asked Elisa, not quite recognizing her in her hybrid form. "She is here?" asked NegaMorph, coming up behind them. Megan ran over to NegaMorph and hugged him tightly. "Oh, uncle," she sobbed, "I shouldn't have left that world. They've been treating me horribly and been calling me freak. I just want to go home." NegaMorph was rather shocked. No one had ever hugged him before, let alone started crying on his shoulder. "Um, there, there?" he said, patting Megan's back with his left arms.

"Guys, we need to get moving," said Draco, "It's almost sunrise. The gargoyles are already heading back but we need to motor." Matt nodded and followed. "Hey kid..." he said to Megan. "I guess you're going to arrest me as soon as we get out of here," said Megan. Matt looked around. "I would but I never saw you," he said innocently. "Then I'm probably heading back," said Megan. "Not if you don't have a place to stay here," said NegaMorph. Matt shrugged, "Plenty of room on base, Techo could delete a ship from the registry at home, could take that." "Uh, I don't think I'm that comfortable with space travel," said Megan.

"I'm sure we can find you a nice place to stay around here," said Elisa. "By the way," said NegaMorph, "Why would Matt want to arrest you?" Matt was unwilling to give the answer so Draco whispered it into NegaMorph's ears. NegaMorph chuckled and said, "Chip off the old block." "More like a chip on my shoulder," grumbled Matt. "You guys talking about me?" asked Chip.

The group headed towards the foyer and almost collided with a bunch of Quarrymen waiting for them. "Oh no, not again," said Matt, backpedaling back round the corner. That didn't prove to be an option as more Quarrymen were coming up behind them. "Don't rush them," said the leader, "Sun's gonna come up in a few seconds." As he spoke, the yellow light of the sun slowly came through the window and illuminated the room. NegaMorph blinked his several eyes and asked, "Was something supposed to happen or did I miss it?" The Quarrymen took one look at NegaMorph and scattered, a few taking potshots as they ran. Matt laughed loudly and said, "I told you so!" He turned to the others and said, "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

Silvia was standing in the hotel room they'd rented when NegaMorph appeared. "Where the smeg were you?" she said irritably. "Oh, I've been looking around for Omnirus. Got mixed up a little in a turf war, but I got out of it," said NegaMorph. "Anything to show for it?" demanded Silvia. "The creep's still underground," said NegaMorph, "probably literally." Silvia swore, "What else? We saw a NSC ship on approach, who's is it?" "Lynch and his crew," said NegaMorph irritably, "From what I've gathered, they're here for the same reason we are." Silvia sighed, "They're like roaches, and they keep following us..."

The group drove back to the Eyrie Building, Megan having reverted back to her human form by then. They went past the security guard, who had learned by now to both not question Elisa and Matt's presence and not ask about anything unusual coming with them. They went up the elevator to the castle, where Xanatos and Fox were waiting in the living room. Standing by one of the doorways was a woman with red hair, green eyes, and familiar clothing and jewelry that looked rather skimpy on her. "Demona?" said Matt, "Is that you?" "Yes, I wasn't able to make it back to my house before the sun rose so now I'll have to borrow Mrs. Xanatos's clothes." She said the word 'borrow' with a rather grim air, as if she would want any other choice. "Wait a second, you don't like humans, but you turn human instead of stone by day…" "Yes, I am well aware of the irony," said Demona, "I have more important things to hear about than your personality critique."

"Yes," said Xanatos, "We've heard quite a bit about Megan from Kala before she went to sleep. Elisa also called us in about what happened." He looked down at Megan with a judging look and continued, "It would seem we're dealing with an individual with the ability to manipulate shadows and has gained access to powers of an extraterrestrial nature for her own personal gain and ended up mutated and banished to another world for all that trouble." "Not to mention she's a sorceress," commented Demona. The others looked at Demona with surprise. "From what I've heard, Matthew was under the influence of dark magic when he broke free. Ms. Roph must know some magic in order to stop him." Megan rubbed the back of her head and said, "I did have a brief magician's apprenticeship in that other world."

"Even so, she's still a child," said Elisa. "Indeed," said Xanatos, "A child with more powers than she knows what to do with or even control. Therefore it is my insistence that she-" the others held their breath for Xanatos's judgment, "stays here." Megan's eyes widened. "You mean it?" she asked. "Of course," said Xanatos in a more jovial tone, "what she needed all along was a comfortable home and people who care about her. But what to do about her powers, I'm not sure." "I could probably find a little time off to show her the finer points of magic," said Demona, "It should be a satisfying experiment to test her brand of magic." Megan sniffed as she got a little teary-eyed.

Demona turned to Matt and said, "Your companions are certainly of an interesting nature. Observing might take a little monotony out of my daytime life. But don't even think about disturbing me at work." "Speaking of my companions, what did you do with Morph?" asked Matt. Just then the door opened and Morph's head stuck in. "If anyone could tell me where the plunger is," said Morph, "I'd really appreciate it." Then Morph walked into the room somewhat awkwardly. This was understandable seeing as he had been stuffed into a bagpipe. His head was poking out of the chanter, his tail from the blowpipe, and his legs from the two drones. The rest was apparently in the bag. Everyone watched as he crossed the room, the bagpipe making a honking sound with every step. Then he sat down on the couch. The bag deflated a little with the shift in pressure, causing a louder sound to come out of Morph's mouth.

Meanwhile, NegaMorph was looking through a window into the room. He saw that Megan was among friends and perfectly safe. He also saw that she was sincerely happy for once. "She doesn't need me anymore," he said to himself. He spread his wings and flew away, leaving his 'niece' where she was.

* * *

There's another chapter. This chapter features the return of Megan Roph (AKA Lady NegaMorph) who was introduced back during the Omnitrix Ordeal. This chapter's a little more serious than what I normally go for, but I think it somewhat suits the normal dark theme of the original Gargoyles series. We'll be seeing Megan again soon. Of course, not very soon since my exams are coming up. But once I finish that and the other stories I'm working on with my co-author, things should progress a lot more rapidly. Until the next update, please review.


	6. Godmother

**Baba Yaga's appearance and personality is the same as in Bartok the Magnificent and thus is properly the rights of Fox Entertainment.**

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 6: Godmother**

Demona sighed to herself. It had been an extra dull day at Nightstone Unlimited and she felt so bored that she might have well have been a stone statue. It was almost a shame that he quit trying to eliminate Goliath's clan and the detective. At least that had given her something to do at nights. "Get a grip on yourself," said Demona to herself, "I don't need to cause trouble for others to keep myself amused, unlike Oberon's Children." She was partially grateful for Puck's 'gift', though she could have gone without the pain that occurred while switching between forms. She couldn't believe that a being such as her who could bring her enemies to her knees wasn't able to keep herself entertained on her time off. But that was the trouble with immortality; finding a way to pass the infinite amount of time.

Then a thought occurred to her. She had a few magical artifacts that she never got around to examining in her laboratory. The only thing she knew about them was that they had no offensive powers, otherwise she'd have utilized them years ago. Demona strode over and shifted a bookend on a certain bookshelf. The bookshelf slid aside, revealed several magical artifacts that she collected over the years.

She looked at the various trinkets with a choosing look until she picked up a large pewter pendant. She had first got this in Eastern Europe, close to the Russian border, if not right on it. She wasn't quite sure how the boundaries had shifted since then, but the blind gypsy who she had bought this from claimed its powers were connected with the Third Race.

Demona carried it over to her workbench. She placed the pendant in a pentagram that had been carved into it long ago. Though Demona merely intended to see what its powers were, it never hurt to be on the safe side. She calmed her mind and then spoke the Latin spell, _"Strenuus veneficus lepor lepos, ostendo mihi vestri dormio specialis."_ The pendant glowed brightly, the designs in it sparkling with a supernatural light. Then the reflection on its surface seemed to lift off the pendant and become a vortex in the air. Demona studied the vortex with interest. Apparently the pendant had some sort of summoning spell attached to it, but for what kind of creature?

Just then the phone rang. Unfortunately, the answering machine was having a glitch so it wouldn't pick it up for her. She groaned to herself and made a mental note to call a repairman tomorrow. She glanced at the pendant's vortex, wondering whether to cancel it. "It is a mere demonstration of its power," she said to herself, "For anything to come through, I'd have to use the actual summoning spell." She walked away, paying no further attention to the vortex.

She picked up the phone on its third ring. "Hello?" she answered. "Ah, Ms. Destine," said a voice she recognized as Dr. Bateson, part of her Special Projects Division." "This had better be good," said Demona, "You know I don't like calls off-hour." "Yes, well, we're having a technical glitch with the Wallflower droid. The equilibrium sensors are having trouble keeping up with the magnetic traction system." Demona rubbed her bony forehead in frustration. The Wallflower droid was a cockroach-shaped robot designed to be a mobile security camera, able to keep an eye on suspicious characters without them noting. It also had the capabilities of a useful spy-bot. However, getting the programming to operate the machine was proving difficult. Then she recalled one of those 'experiments' was supposed to be a master of computer programming. What was his name again? Bit…Byte…Chip, that was it. "I see I'll have to take a look at it myself," said Demona, "Have it put in a proper container and then-"

Suddenly she heard there was a flash coming from her laboratory. "Ms. Destine, is something wrong?" asked Dr. Bateson. "No, no," said Demona, "I've merely left something that needs attention in the kitchen. We'll talk about the Wallflower tomorrow." She hung up and quickly ran back to the laboratory.

When she ran in, it was actually not as bad as she feared. She had thought the pendant had exploded with pent-up energy and created a real mess. Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the pendant was sitting on the desk, looking perfectly mundane, while the Faerie that came through looked around the room.

From what Demona's read and heard, Faeries love to assume fantastical guises to inspire myths among mortals. So she was a little surprised with the more mundane look of this one. She looked not much more than a Russian peasant woman, complete with apron and goulashes. There were a few things that set her apart from a true peasant woman, like the tall red hat, her very long pigtails, a nose that was long and thick, and a chin that jutted out almost the same length of the nose and had a wart on one side. The Faerie didn't pay Demona any mind and said to herself with a Russian accent, "So this is the modern America. Not much to see of it. It needs a couple decorations on the walls."

Demona cleared her throat. The Faerie turned to her and said, "Ah, you must be this 'Demona' I've heard tell about. Of course, not many else would have this." She waved a hand towards the pendant that brought her here. "Who are you and how did you get through?" demanded Demona. The Faerie laughed and said, "I'm surprised. I thought you would be more well-read in folklore." She grinned, showing a mouth full of sharp iron fangs. Then Demona recalled tales from Russia about a witch who had teeth of sharpened iron.

"Baba Yaga?" she asked. The Faerie clapped her hands and said, "Ah, glad to see I've not been forgotten in this modern world." "I thought you were an actual myth," said Demona, "No Child of Oberon could possibly survive with a mouth full of iron." "Feh," said Baba Yaga, "That may apply to the others, except Hephaestus, but iron has no power over me. How else could I live in the Iron Forest?"

"But how did you get here?" asked Demona, "I didn't recite any summoning spell." "Shows what you know," said Baba Yaga, "That pendant's not for summoning. It's a two-way door to the Elder Court. You opened the doorway and left it open. That's all that probably would have happened if anyone else was by the other side of the door." "And why would you want to come through?" asked Demona, trying to think of someway to send Baba Yaga back. "I wanted to see more of this America all the humans were emigrating to. Well, I've spent enough time talking, time to go see the New World."

Baba Yaga waved her arms and a giant mortar and pestle appeared out of nowhere. She climbed in before Demona could stop her and took off through the bedroom window which opened by itself to let her through. Demona stared after her and said, "Well, this is more excitement than I had anticipated."

Matt sat in one of the cargo bays. He knew Draco had received a message from the Dragon Council but he was confused as to how he fell into orders like that. "So what's this all about?" asked Matt. "Apparently, the Dragon Council feels that you are a bit too naive when it comes to magical items," said Draco, "So I'm appointed to teach how to recognize magic when it's near." "But you barely know anything about magic," said Matt. "That's what I told them," said Draco, "but orders are orders." "So...teach? What first?" said Matt cheekily, sitting back. "How about a bit of aura reading?" said Draco, "I can somewhat mimic with my horns. No slouching." Draco's horns glowed a bit as Matt's spine was forced back upwards. Matt glared. It said the simple message that like most elephants, Matt wouldn't forget this. "Ok...boss...please...release spine," he said, wincing.

Matt had read a bit about aura reading. A few species in Nullspace had the talent naturally and were usually at security checkpoints and in NSC intelligence. "Ok..." he said, sitting back down and trying to concentrate. Matt relaxed his mind and tried opening up to what's around him. He began to become aware of different 'energy signatures' from different sources of magic. Suddenly a large 'bogey' appeared on his 'radar'. Before Matt could a better identification of it, it booted him back to his physical body.

He opened his eyes to find the world upside down and a lump under his back that said, "Get off me!" Matt rolled over to find an irritated Draco beneath him. "What was that about?" demanded Draco as he got up. "I dunno, I did pick up something, with one hell of a right hook," he said, rubbing his head on reflex, even though he hadn't been injured.

"Mr. Draco, Commander. I know you requested no interruptions but Patrol 12 had found...something strange," said Warden over the intercom.

--

Alice had been a Hawk pilot for close to 3 years and she'd heard good things about Commader Lynch and his crew, most of the military corps had. She'd also heard some of the stories about what they'd faced. What her Hawk fighter was tailing was new even by their standards. "Control, are you receiving this?" she said over the comms.

--

Back at the base, Matt and Draco stared at the feed from Alice's fighter's nose-cam. "Is that a mortar and pestle? Do they do that here?" said Matt, his brain still a bit scrambled from the psychic sucker punch. "Of course, that only looks like a mortar and pestle," said Draco hopefully, "It's probably just some new-fangled hovercraft thingy." Warden chimed in. "The scans appear to indicate a heavy amount of Type Alpha Magi energy emanating from the object," he said, calmly. "It is most likely a local member of the magical community." "Didn't the clan mention a Third Race?" asked Draco, "Something about Faeries?" Matt nodded and said, "Can you get a visual of who's flying that thing?" Alice nodded and zoomed the camera in. "Wow, grannies have flying licenses?" she said in shock as the image cleared.

The 'pilot' looked over her shoulder and waved her hand. Suddenly the visual was lost. "Warden, what happened? Is Alice down?" "No," said the Warden, sounding confused, "but it appears she and her vessel have been transmogrified into a mockingbird." Matt stared. "Right...well...we've only had a week without weird shit happening...we were overdue," he said in a deadly calm voice of someone one slight incident away from exploding. "Oookay," said Draco, "I remember hearing about a witch who flew in a mortar and pestle when I went to Russia that one time, what was it again?" Warden replied smugly, "Baba Yaga. One of the only lifeforms known as fairy's to be immune to Iron or its related products." Matt muttered, "Smartass," before saying, "Well, she just transformed a good pilot into a birdy. I think that counts as hostile. I vote we send her back to Siberia via UPS."

--

Slices squadron mates stared in shock as the bird Alice and her ship had been transformed into flew away. "You see what that smeg did to Eagle 1? Let's blast her," said one of the two remaining jets. Both opened up with their underslung autocannons, catching the fairy off guard. The shells exploded against Baba Yaga's transport as she passed over a building. The first managed to avoid it but the second hit the second dead on, petrifying it and making it crash on the roof below. The surviving fighter fired its nose laser to better effect only to be turned into the squadron's callsign namesake, an eagle.

The pilot in the petrified jet smashed his way loose and turned to be face to face with Baba Yaga. "Ok, lady," he said with as much courage as he could muster, "you're under arrest for flying an unauthorized vehicle in civilian territory and resisting arrest by-" Baba Yaga cut the pilot off by turning the petrified jet into a confused looking seagull. "Eep," said the pilot nervously. "I'm tempted to see how you'd look as a parrot," said Baba Yaga, causing the pilot to blanche, "But I'd rather not waste time squabbling. So you tell whoever you work for not to send any more machines after me, or else..." "But...you're not really allowed to go about flying alchemy equipment...people notice that and panic..." said the pilot, trying to be reasonable. He gave up in the face of weirdness when the birds his fellow pilots and their jets had become landed beside him. "I know how to avoid attention," said Baba, "You were just lucky, or unlucky. Now go away before I start working a beak on you." The pilot shrugged turning his back to shoo Alice away. "Not for a while, you birdied my ride," he said turning back to see that Baba Yaga was gone. "I'm gonna get blamed for this," he said gloomily.

---

"Let me get this straight, she gave you guys the bird and told you to tell us not to send anymore machines after her?" said Matt after the pilot had managed to get his way back. "Actually, she turned Alice and her fighter into a mockingbird, my fighter into a seagull, and my partner and his fighter into an eagle. But the last part's right," said the pilot, who had a noticeable amount of bird droppings on him, "It was a nightmare getting them back here." "I can imagine," said Matt. Warden chimed up. "The records I have gleamed on the local magical creatures indicates that this new subject must have been 'summoned'," said the A.I. "Summoned?" said Matt. He only knew of three people around who could do that. "I think I better see the clan about this," said Matt, "partially because two possible summoners live there and they've got better experience with Faeries."

--

Matt finished explaining the problem. "There you have it. We got a Russian fairy with iron false teeth running around the city turning it into a menagerie," he said. Techo shrugged. "So far she's turned 4 of our patrols, two cop cars and cops, a whole quarryman rally and some lawyer into birds," he said, reading from a list. "The med bay back at base is almost full."

"Med bay? I think 'aviary' is a more proper term," said Chip, "There're feathers everywhere, they won't stop squawking, and I can't walk in there without an umbrella in hand. I never knew birds were such annoying animals. No offense, Contrinus." "I'm more intelligent than that," said Contrinus, her feathers somewhat ruffled at the remark. "Either way, we gotta slow her down at least. The last two patrols were just there to talk to her," said Matt. Chris said, "We're looking for the culprit summoner at the moment." Matt's gaze fell on Megan, "There wasn't any, teaching accidents, were there?" "Miss Roph is not to blame here," said Owen, "Summoning a being like Baba Yaga is quite beyond her current abilities. The same applies to Alexander." "Yeah, Demona hasn't shown me any kind of summoning spell with our last lesson," said Megan. Matt looked at Chris. "Demona, right," he said.

--

The gates to Demona's estate were reinforced and made to withstand ram-raids by medium and even large cars. It wasn't made to stop a Scorpion Tank such as the one that simply drove over the gates. Matt jumped off an escorting Warthog and walked angrily towards the house. He knocked on the door and without awaiting an answer pointed to a trooper. "Shoot the damn hinges off," he said. The trooper was about to obey when the door did open. Demona did not look happy.

"Is there a reason you're intruding into my home?" demanded Demona. "Gee, I don't know," said Matt sarcastically, "Is there a reason you summoned a crazy Russian witch to New York?" "Oh, I'd thought that'd come back to haunt me," said Demona, looking somewhat embarrassed, "It was sort of an accident. I was bored and I was examining the powers of one of my artifacts." "You know, humans have invented a way of entertaining themselves without endangering others," said Matt, "It's called television."

Demona glared angrily. "Well, as you sent her here, you can help us send her back home," Matt said, rudely adding, "It was not a request." "I didn't actually summon her," said Demona, "I just opened a door for her to use. But this does need to stop before it gets too messy." "Messy? She's turning New York into a giant birdhouse!" yelled Matt. Demona looked amused, "That is interesting," she said, "I've always thought that the humans squabbled like fowl in a henhouse." Matt didn't laugh. "Very well, have the clan ready to meet me in Central Park. This matter must be resolved without your weapons."

--

Matt stood in Central Park. He was already feeling doubts about this. "This is going to end bad," he muttered as the clan, Elisa, and Megan arrived. "So, how do we know if Baba Yaga's going to show up here?" asked Elisa. Matt shrugged, "Chaos, explosions, sudden urge for bird seed?"

"Why can't we ever be visited by good fae?" moaned Brooklyn. "I don't think she's evil, exactly," said Megan, "From what Demona said, she just wants some fresh air." "What about all the birdbrains she's added to the local population?" said Matt, annoyed. "She only transformed the people who spotted her," said Angela, "Presumably, when she changes them back they won't remember anything." Matt shook his head. "Contrinus translated for a few of the victims. I doubt they're forgetting much judging from the language."

"Well, I guess when it's been a couple hundred years since you've had anyone to practice on, I guess you get pretty board," said Draco, shrugging. "Again, there are mundane, peaceful ways of self-entertainment," said Matt, apparently on his last nerve. "Back in medieval Russia?" said Chip. Matt thought about this. "Touché," he said.

A scream in the distance turned into a squawk mid-way. "Oh, here she comes now," said Matt. Several of them had to duck as Baba's mortar whizzed over them. "Hey grandma!" called Matt, "This feather business has to stop now! Pull over!" Baba glanced down at them, "Oh, gargoyles now, this should be fun." Matt readied a plasma orb, "Dragons too, never forget dragons." Baba frowned and said, "I though we wiped the dragons out long ago. I never thought they could take human form." Matt gulped. "I just said a really dumb thing, didn't I?" he said.

"Let's bring her down to our level," said Draco, "Morph, hand me the sheet." Morph walked over and held up a bunched-up sheet. Draco reached without looking and threw at Baba Yaga with all his might. He looked behind to see the sheet sitting on the ground. "Wait, what'd I throw?" Matt winced, dreading what he'd see. Indeed, Morph had splatted over the fae's head like the world's biggest piece of chewing gum, "Oh nuts...nice shot though."

Baba Yaga, her vision blinded by the white goo, was forced to land her mortar. As soon as she got a good grip on Morph, she yanked him off her face. "Howdy-do," said Morph. A small flash of light and Baba dropped a white dodo bird on the ground. "That actually comes as a surprise to no one," said Chip. Matt glared and flew straight at her, raking at her with his claws. "No zapping my crew!" he roared as he went in for another pass. Baba Yaga screeched in rage and threw a fireball at Matt. Matt narrowly avoided the blast, "Okay, I probably should have saw that coming." Matt went in for a third pass and met the receiving end of a lightning bolt. "That should take care of him," snorted Baba. She was about to walk away when she heard Matt laugh, "I've been zapped by lightning more times than you think, lady."

Matt came in for a final pass and grabbed her. "Ok, can you fly without your fancy chemistry set?" he snarled. Baba's revealed her iron teeth in a toothy smile, "Question should be, can you fly without webbed wings?" Before Matt could ask what she meant, he found himself shrinking and losing use of his hands. A few seconds later, an extremely confused-looking peregrine falcon was flapping around Baba's head. Matt could never be accused of being petty, but he loved vengeance. He pecked her on the nose before flying out of range. 'Please let me forget this. It's too embarrassing,' he thought.

Baba Yaga rubbed the part of her nose where Matt pecked him. "That should teach him," she said. She turned around and asked, "Who's next?" "What the heck's going around here?" asked a familiar voice. NegaMorph landed a couple feet away and said, "I go out hunting for Omnirus when I'm caught in a rendition of Hitchcock's 'The Birds', I find a whole bunch of gargoyles in Central Park and now..." He looked at Baba Yaga, "Russian peasant women with metal teeth? What's next?"

Matt winced then took some interest. 'Least I get some entertainment now,' he thought. "Oh, hey NegaMorph," said Draco, "This is the rest of the Manhattan Clan; Brooklyn, his mate Sata, their kids Ariana and Graeme, Angela's boyfriend Broadway, Lexington, and Hudson. That's Baba Yaga. She just turned Morph into a dodo and Matt into a peregrine falcon." NegaMorph started to snigger and yelled as Matt attacked him. NegaMorph yelled, "Ah! Get off of me you little-" Matt gave a shrill whistle and flew off. "Do that again and you'll be going 200 mph... into a brick wall." Matt glared at NegaMorph. This should be noted; birds of prey make good glarers.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" NegaMorph turned to see Baba looking at him with interest. "What are you looking at, big nose?" he said rudely. Baba glared and said, "Too ugly to be a bird, how about we settle for bug?" A magical spell narrowly missed NegaMorph and turned a nearby bush into a giant centipede.

Kala blanched and backed up at high speed to hide behind Matt's perch. Matt transferred his glare to the centipede and twin beams of plasma shot out and incinerated it. 'Cool, least that still works,' he thought. "Thanks Matt," said Kala. Matt glided down and perched on Kala's shoulder. 'You know, this might not be so bad after all,' he though as Kala scratched his head. Matt turned his gaze on Baba Yaga, eyes glowing solid blue '...but first...business before pleasure' he thought.

NegaMorph wasn't as fond of his true form as the next person, but he didn't like the idea of trading it in for that of an arthropod. He had to do a bit of bodyshifting to avoid being tagged by Baba's spells, which transformed various inanimate objects into various creepy-crawlies. "You're a good dodger," said Baba Yaga, "This is actually being a challenge." "I aim to please," said NegaMorph sarcastically as a missed spell created a large ladybug out of a rock.

Contrinus noticed Matt's eyes and said, "Don't you think it would be a bad idea to destroy the being who can turn you back without having to go around a lot of barriers?" Matt thought about this and started tagging the various transformed objects instead with his plasma fire before they could escape. He also 'accidentally' shot NegaMorph on the butt. 'So sue me...' he chirped at Contrinus. "Where's Morph gotten to?" asked Draco. He spotted the albino dodo trying to catch a large grasshopper. "Forget it, Morph," called Draco, "You don't have a stretchable mouth anymore, remember?"

Kala got up and glared at Baba Yaga. "STOP IT!" she yelled angrily. "She is right," said Goliath, "We do not have to fight like this. There is a peaceful way we can-" "Ah, put a sock in it," said Baba Yaga as she waved her hand. A large wool sock appeared out of thin air and forced its way into Goliath's mouth. "Can't an old woman have some fun?" Another wave created a wind that blew all the gargoyles back.

Then a wall of shadow appeared in front of them and blocked the wind. "That's enough," said Megan. Kala looked over. "Megan, don't, she'll do the same to you as she did to Matt," she said. Baba Yaga, however, did look like she was going to retaliate. She looked genuinely surprised. "Do that again," she said. "Gladly," said Megan and sent a shadowy arm straight at her. Baba grabbed the shadow and held it under her long nose. She sniffed it a couple times and gave it a great tug. Megan was yanked forwards towards Baba. Matt expected it to end messy, but Baba wrapped her arms around Megan in a tight embrace and said, "крестница!"

Matt's beak fell open in shock, along with everyone else. "Uh, what just happened?" asked Draco. "I don't know," said Chip, "But if my Russian's any good, Baba Yaga just called Megan 'goddaughter'." Kala just stared. "I really should be used to this," she said to Matt who chirped in agreement. "I wondered how you had grown up," said Baba as she pinched Megan's cheek, "What has happened to you? Why are you not in your New York?" "Well," said Mega slowly, "It's basically because I stole some of my 'uncle's' DNA." She pointed at NegaMorph, whose several mouths were hanging wide open, except the one on his chest.

"Uh, could someone tell me how Megan could have a fairy godmother?" asked Chris. "Ah, it happened long time ago," said Baba Yaga, "I knew Megan's grandmother when she was a little girl in Russia. She was a sweet girl and one of the few who would show politeness towards their elders." She gave a glare towards NegaMorph and Matt, "I promised her I'd look after her grandchild. However, her daughter moved to America, which was quite a long distance for me. I was only able to pop over only so quickly to give Megan the blessing of faerie magic and return. It would appear she possesses special talent in Darkness-type magic." Matt looked at Baba Yaga. "God help Megan's parents if she finds out how they treated her,' he thought. "But didn't she come from a different New York in a different world?" asked Techo. Baba shrugged, "I can visit other Russias, I just can't stray too far."

"Ok, godmother," said Megan, "I guess I can call you that, since your story explains a lot. But would you mind turning everyone back to normal now?" Matt tried to fly off too late, the two crumpling in a heap. "We never speak of this day again," he muttered. Morph, who had been held by Draco, coughed and said, "I think I swallowed a bug." "Several actually," said Draco, "Be thankful I kept you from eating the stinkbug."

"So your parents did not take kindly to this creature mutating you?" said Baba Yaga, glaring at NegaMorph. "Actually, that happened afterwards," said Matt as he helped Kala up. "After what?" "After my parents learned about my shadow powers and tossed me out," said Megan, "They thought I was a demon." She looked at her three left hands and said, "I guess I am now." "Looks aren't everything," said Matt, pointing at Morph for emphasis. "Ah, you poor child," said Baba, "You can come home with me and I'll show you what your powers really are."

"Hold it!" said NegaMorph, "I may agree to have her live with a bunch of gargoyles, though they're not much better than the humans around here, but I don't think my niece should stay with some fairytale witch in her chicken house." "Yea...you just gave her a nice fresh dose of your own DNA, blob boy." said Matt, interrupting him. "She stole before hand and I wasn't aiming for her when those fangs flew," argued NegaMorph, "Besides, she should be focusing on her alien powers." "What makes you think you've got any rights to her?" demanded Baba Yaga as she walked over to him.

Matt moved away from NegaMorph and took cover behind a bench to watch. "This'll be good," he said. "Oh, you were just fiddling around in fairyland while her parents kicked her out and now you want to pick her up?" said NegaMorph. Baba Yaga got nose-to-nose with him, although all of actual nose was hers. "And what about you? You leave her with others so you don't have to care for her yourself?" "I've got a fulltime job," said NegaMorph, "I've got no time for raising kids." "Oh boy," commented Brooklyn, "There isn't a court on this planet for this custody trial."

"Did I fail to mention he works for an evil empire intent on full multiversal domination?" said Matt, not missing a chance to drop his enemy in it or a chance to see what NegaMorph looked like with feathers. "Is that so?" said Baba Yaga as magic started to flicker around her fingers. "Well you can hardly expect a 'Bring-Your-Niece-To-Work-Day'," said NegaMorph, his claws extending slightly. "STOP IT!" yelled Megan. The bickering duo stopped and turned towards Megan. "Don't you think I get a say in this?" said Megan.

Matt sighed. "They're no fun," he muttered and settled down to watch. Megan turned to NegaMorph and said, "Look, I appreciate you're trying to get me settled, but I don't need constant supervision. I don't need to master all your powers. I can get along fine with what I have." Then she said to Baba Yaga, "I think if I want to use this magic for all it's worth, I better go with you. Since I can apparently do both human and fae magic, I think it'll take me longer than just focusing on my alien powers."

Baba clapped her hands together and said, "I knew you were a smart girl. Come, we have much to cover." She opened her hand and intoned, "_Little hut, little hut, your chicken feet roam. Come here to me so I may come home._" Matt jumped about a foot in the air as a house appeared behind the fae. That wasn't the shocking part. The fact the house had CHICKEN LEGS was. "Is that all of today's surprises? I think I've had enough," said Matt. The house crouched down so Baba Yaga could walk over and open the door. "By the way," she said, "the other birds are back where they belong and in their right shape. We'll send for Megan's things." Then she walked inside without another word. "I guess I'll be going away for a while," said Megan. She gave NegaMorph a hug and said, "Bye uncle. Thanks for helping find my godmother."

Matt waved to Megan. "Have fun, kid," he said. Then Megan went inside the house and it disappeared. "Well, if that's all that's gonna happen here," said NegaMorph, "I'm off to finish what I was doing." Matt shrugged. "Fine, get lost, blobby. I have to go get an urge to preen myself out my system," he said gloomily.

Demona had a more considerable response. "I understand losing your niece is hard for you," she said, "But she's in very good hands and you should be thankful for it." NegaMorph glanced back at her and said, "You know, you're probably the only one here that I might actually like." Then he extended his wings and took off.

* * *

There's another chapter. I would have gotten it up sooner but I was having a little schedule trouble. Not to mention I've been trying to find a place on the Internet where I could the Russian translation in Romantic alphabet letters. For future uses, if someone knows of a site for that purpose, please tell me. This chapter certainly explains a lot about Megan's powers. And don't think we've seen the last of her. Maybe for this arc, but definitely not the last time we see her. And now that I'm out of high school, I should have more time for writing. Expect the next chapter up sometime next week. Until then, please review.


	7. Message of the Soul

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 7: ****Message of the Soul**

It had been a fortnight since Baba Yaga had paid a visit to the Big Apple, almost turning it into the Big Aviary. Matt and Chris were on patrol and had stopped to get a hot dog. Matt had been carefully ignoring any question about how quiet it had been. "For the last time, stop asking me," he said after Chris asked for the 6th time. "It just seems odd, that's all," said Chris, "I thought this place was a magnet for trouble." "If anything's a magnet for trouble, it's me," said Matt, "and I've learned to count my blessings and not to tempt fate." "But you have to agree that it is quiet," said Chris. Matt nodded and said without thinking, "Yeah, oh bugger."

Meanwhile, in a nearby alley, an elderly Asian woman was watching Matt and Chris. But she wasn't any sweet little old granny. This lady had plenty of energy in her own bones and lots of fire in her veins. The homeless man that had seen her step out a nullspace tear was trying to drill a hole in the wall with his shoulder blades from sheer terror. The woman gave him a passing glance and muttered, "Physically harmless, but I can't let that mouth wander." She waved her hand in his direction and something black flew at him. The guy screamed in terror as the black energy buried itself in his chest and then in pain as the energy started doing what it had been made for.

--

Matt and Chris froze as the homeless man's screams reached them. "What in nullspace was that?" said Matt slowly. The hot dog vendor took a few steps back as his customers pulled out some rather business-like weapons and looked at the alley the scream had issued from. One of them, Chris, looked at the vendor, "I think you should quit early." "It's daytime," said Matt, "Can't expect any help from the clan." "Since when have we ever depended on them?" said Chris.

They both headed towards the alley and spotted… "CHANG!" yelled Matt, spotting the ex-councilor next to a hunched figure making pained grunting noises on the ground. "Freeze lizard lady!" yelled Chris as they both aimed. "Ah, Matt," said Chang with a sneer, "I had hope I'd run into you again. I had wanted to express my feelings regarding turning on me." "Take it up with someone who gives a smeg, lady," said Matt adding, "Oh, move and you're dead. The NSC met the Council's bounty for bringing you in alive, only they don't care what your condition is." "I had a feeling they would," said Chang, "Which is why I've upgraded my personal protection." With that she stepped aside to allow the figure to step up. It resembled a half-starved dragon, still in the remains of dirty clothing. "Chang smirked evilly. "Kill them," she said simply before transforming and flying off.

The creature roared and charged them. "What the heck is that?" asked Chris. "Don't know," said Matt, "But it's angry." The shade grabbed Matt by the arm and flung him out the alley into the vendor's stand, smashing it before uppercutting Chris and running past them, frightening passerby as it went. Matt and Chris ran back to their Warthog and drove after the shade. "Can't let that thing attack anyone," said Matt, "Judging by its clothing, it used to be human before Chang came along. Don't know if what she did is contagious." Matt turned on the comm. "All units, Chang's in town and she's brought friends. I need all units to..." he looked at the GPS, "Sector A-4, bring the big guns." The shade looked behind it as two more warthogs, armed versions swerved into the street behind it and their turret operators fired with practiced skill.

The shade jumped and dodged the shots until two NYPD squad cars, responding to the many 911 calls, also joined the chase, blocking the gunners. "Ok, that's a complication," said Chris. "I don't think it would be a good idea to fire anyways," said Matt. Then the shade fired a blast at the cop cars and caused them to swerve onto the sides of the road, fortunately with no casualties. A second blast hit one of the hogs, sending it into the air and flinging its crew out of it and blocking the other hog. Matt swerved round the crash and carried on. "This guy's pissing me off," he said, readying a plasma orb and flinging it at the ground just ahead of the shade. The shade hissed and climbed up a building's side. Matt swore and jumped out of the Warthog. "Send back up," he said though his communicator to Warden, "make sure they're not in land vehicles." "I have already re-routed Captain Alice's squad to your location. E.T.A is 1.2 minutes...recommend you wait." Matt shook his head. "Who knows what Chang has planned? One we can handle, a whole city of these things will be hell," he said, transforming and flying up the side of the building

Matt flew up and said, "Alright, you little cretin, come out with your claws...up?" The last word came out as a peep when Matt saw who was on the roof. The Dark Dragon, still stuck in the young dragon that Matt had last seen him take over and Chang were standing on the roof with a veritable army of the regular shadow creatures and the mutated hobo. "Oh boy," said Matt, "And to what do I owe the pleasure?" "A number of things," said the Dark Dragon, "This visit commemorates many things: my revenge on your crew, the start of my new army, and..." Chang handed him a strange, but very familiar-looking, gun, "the last time you'll ever see the light of the sun." Matt went wide eyed. "Oh shi..." he began as the Dark Dragon fired.

--

Dark Dragon watched as the reality gun, an older model, took effect. Unlike the model Romanov had used, its effects would only has a couple of days but if the plan finished as planned then Mr. Lynch would not live that long. "Kill him," DD said to the hobo. The mutated hobo walked forward to comply...and was knocked flying by a red beam from over the villains' heads. They turned to see three Hawk gunships hovering. "Morning," said Captain Alice before opening fire on the crowd of shades, blasting them apart by the dozen. One focused on the spell as it emerged from the unconscious hobo, destroying it. The Dark Dragon snorted in annoyance. "Call a strategic retreat," he ordered Chang, "We do not yet have enough infantry to combat them." "But Lynch-" said Chang. "He won't be going anywhere anytime soon," said the Dark Dragon, "Retreat!" The two dragons faded away as the rounds hit around them. The roof door blew off its hinges and a NSC fireteam burst through. "Sir, are you...ok?" said a squad member, "Oh shit, get Captain Anderson." Chris had also come to the rooftop. "Oh boy," he said, "Matt's not going to be pleased when he wakes up."

---

Matt's dreams were sporadic the entire time he slept. But a large portion of them involved flight of some sort. Then he felt a coldness outside him, something that stirred him to wake up. He flexed his body and gave a loud yawn. It was then he noticed something odd. First of all, he felt something fall off of him as he moved. Secondly, the yawn sounded a lot more like a roar. Then he noticed he was in Castle Wyvern's courtyard and it was nighttime. Part of his brain was quick to supply a reason. He looked down to see he was in his dragon form. "Ok...weird," he said, trying to turn human to no effect. "Oh no, please no, it's not fair," he moaned as he got a good idea what the gun had been. "Matt?" Matt turned to see the experiments standing there. "Guys, what am I doing here?" asked Matt. "Settle down, we'll explain it all," said Chip, "Just don't look in the mirror." Out of curiosity, Matt glanced into the mirror Morph had used when he was wearing Demona's jewelry... and let out a loud scream of fright. "I told you not to look in the mirror," said Chip.

Matt was now a gargoyle, a gargoyle resembling his dragon form to be exact. There were several features that were of gargoyle nature, such as the claws on his wing's elbows, his reconfigured legs, and his skin was a uniform black with no scales. His armor also reconfigured to somewhat resemble Brooklyn's only it covered more and looked more high-tech. "Tell me we caught DD," he said in a small voice, the sort people have when they're an inch from either breaking out into evil laughter or smashing a wall down. "No, he and Chang flew the coop after blasting you with the reality gun," said Draco slowly, "But on the bright side, you can spend more time with Kala now."

Matt's eye twitched. "I'll be right back," he said and walked off. After a minute Draco walked off and found him banging his head on a wall. Draco took a few seconds to observe, nodded, and walked back to the others. After a whispered discussion, Morph was sent over to cheer Matt up. A second later a small explosion was heard and Matt walked back. "Ah, that's much better." Then the other gargoyles came over. "Cool," said Graeme, "Now he can play with us now." He took Matt's hand and said, "Come on, you'll love Cyborg Armadillos." Ariana grabbed Matt's other arm and said, "Why would he want to watch that silly show? He'd rather practice bo staff-fighting with me." "No he wouldn't, he'd rather watch Cyborg Armadillos." Matt soon found himself between a sibling tug-of-war, much to the experiments' amusement. "Erm...I prefer Digimon, myself," he said, despite nobody actually listening.

Kala came in, stretching a bit from her own stone sleep and spotted Matt. There was an almost auditable 'clunk' as her mouth fell open. Matt's attention also became fixated on Kala. Though he would not reveal it even through extreme torture, he did find her gargoyle form quite attractive. But now with gargoyle hormones coursing through him, her allure was a lot stronger than before. After a minute, his libido was kicked back into the passenger seat as his ears supplied that Kala was speaking. "Matt? I said how did this happen?" she was saying. Matt shook his head and said, "Chang, Dark Dragon, and a reality gun. Not a pleasant combination. Good thing those reality guns can only hold one shot at a time, eh?" Kala nodded. "Yeah," she said. Matt looked around and saw the experiments. "Can I help you?" he said glaring. The message was simple, 'smeg off'.

"Nope," said Contrinus, "We'll all be going. Now!" She pushed the other experiments through the door. "Draco, dear," said Contrinus, "How about a little nighttime flying?" Draco looked like he was about to object when Contrinus gave him a 'my-way-or-the-highway' look. "Uh, sure," said Draco. As he and Contrinus walked over to the precipice, Draco called over to Matt and Kala, "Hey, if you're wanting to do a bit of 'experimenting', I've heard gargoyle females are only fertile every 20 years on the spring equinox." Contrinus kicked Draco's shins, which caused him to wince. Matt also aimed a low level blast at Draco, covering his face with soot. "Nice kick Contrinus," he said with a grin, "Soot should wash off in the park lake."

--

Matt had gone on one of the nighttime patrols with Brooklyn and Broadway. The three of them were quiet for a while. Matt tried whistling to himself, but moving his new snout's lips wasn't as simple as he expected. Broadway got a little closer to Brooklyn and whispered to him, "Do you want to ask him?" "Why me? You're the one with the future mate." "It's not official, yet," said Broadway, "besides, you'd probably seen more see more of this when you dancing with the Phoenix Gate." "I told you, I can't remember exactly everything. And if I did, I don't think it would make asking him any easier." Matt sighed. "I can hear you guys," he said, as he scanned the street for trouble spots, also listening to the hacked feed from the police band that Warden was streaming to his comm.

Broadway cleared his throat and said, "So, since we're all just male gargoyles here, how exactly to you feel about Kala?" Matt choked and sputtered out, "Say what? What do you mean?" Brooklyn said, "We saw how you looked at each other. Something's going on there." Matt stuttered, "Well...well...she's an experi...I mean...if she was human, yea sure...but cross-species relationships tend to blow up in my face. The last one ended badly." "So?" said Brooklyn, "Goliath and Elisa are having a relationship and they're as different as conceivably possible, if you believe some of the people around here."

"Well, it's not like I wouldn't," said Matt, "It's just that current circumstances don't favor any romance. I've got several enemies after me, and not just the Empire, and it's more than likely that some of the higher-ups in the NSC won't approve of it. Neilsson, to name one." "Yeah, there's definitely that," said Brooklyn. "What was that?" asked Matt. "Uh, I mean, I'm sure at some point, your life will have less enemy hazards and you'll be able to have a little breathing room. Besides, I bet there are plenty of cross-species couples in your galaxy. Why should you and Kala be so different?"

"In her proper form, she's about a quarter my size." said Matt promptly. "Well, if she's artificial," said Broadway, "can't she be modified, or upgraded, or something?" "Hmm, I did wonder how Chip got that fembot form of his," said Matt, "The only answers I got regarding that are a stern glare or a chocked squeak."

"You could take advantage of right now," said Brooklyn. "Uh-uh," said Matt, "This is only temporary. And I'm getting out of this form as soon as I-" Then he noticed something. "Does Central Park seem the wrong color to you?" Central Park had just come into view down a street. Matt turned and flew up to a roof overlooking the park and stared. A black energy seemed to be draining the color from the park. As the three gargoyles watched it began to solidify. Matt spread his wings to fly down. "C'mon, Draco and Contrinus are there," he said.

---

Meanwhile, Draco and Contrinus, who had been sitting in a tree a few moments ago, was looking around at the sudden change in the surrounding pigmentation. "This doesn't look natural," said Contrinus. "I don't know, I think it suits the place," said a familiar voice. The two experiments turned to see NegaMorph and Silvia. "Cool it, lovebirds, we didn't do it," said Silvia. "What are you doing here?" demanded Draco, his scaly hackles starting to rise. "We've heard that Chang was in town," said Silvia, "And this looks as likely a spot as any for finding her." "We've also detected Omnirus in this area," said NegaMorph, "though why he'd come here is beyond me."

Two humans...or at least humanoids walked into view. "Omnirus has evacuated," said one of the two. Silvia sighed. "We're outta here, best wishes to Lynch," she said and the two turned to leave. "Escape is impossible," said the other 'human', "A class 12 magi field has been erected around the perimeter." Silvia turned to NegaMorph, "Can't your Lockblade cut through this?" "What do I look like, Houdini?" said NegaMorph. "Depends, have you assimilated his Viral Clone yet?" NegaMorph rolled his eyes and said, "Not that Houdini, the original... Oh nevermind. Point is, as far as I can tell, the Lockblade can only work if there's some entrance to this thing, like a keyhole or something. And this thing's one solid sheet."

"You're right. Miss Silvia, how nice to meet you again," said a voice behind the group. The Dark Dragon and Chang appeared from the shadows, flanked by two transformed park goers, courtesy of the shade spells. "I trust you won't..." began DD right up till one of Silvia's 'human' companions blasted him back 30 feet with a plasma burst from his arm. The other one rushed Chang. "I'll hate myself tomorrow but come on, while they're playing tag with our escort," said Silvia. Chang shifted to dragon form and sent a blast of lightning out of her staff at the T-X. The robot was momentarily stunned, but its internal processors stabilized and one of its arms shifted into a plasma cannon built like a machine gun.

Meanwhile…

DD got up a little dazed in time to receive a punch like a freight train from the other T-X. "You have been deemed hazardous to the commander's health. Termination proceeding," it intoned, stalking through the flames that DD spat at him. "Fireproof eh?" said the Dark Dragon, "Let's see how you fare against darkness." A ball of dark energy collected in his hand before he threw it at the robot. The T-X swatted the orb aside and followed its progress in robotic curiosity. It turned back a split second later to find DD missing. "Comply and your termination will be painless," it intoned and jerked. DD reappeared behind the machine, his fist through the T-X's chest armor. "Useless golem," said DD before tearing the T-X's head off and pushing it to the floor.

Chang had also dispensed of her T-X, via a lightning bolt while being in the pond. "Now, where were those four?" said DD. "They can't have gone far," said Chang, "the park is inescapable." "Then this will be fun hunting," said the Dark Dragon.

--

Silvia looked at her wristcomp. "The T-X's are toast, NegaMorph," she said, readying a lightning orb in her hand. She looked over at Contrinus, who was staring suspiciously at her. "Is there a particular reason you helped us?" asked Contrinus, "I thought we were supposed to be enemies." "True, but I consider the Dark Dragon a great and more personal enemy than you and since you've also got issues with him, it would be better if we were to work against him together," said Silvia. "If you think that will aid you," said the voice of DD. "Oh hell..." said Silvia. A lightning bolt hit her in the chest, earthing harmlessly. "Oh please, do better then that you little witch," she said for Chang's benefit.

"As you wish," said Chang as she readied a shade in her hand. When she threw it though, NegaMorph jumped in front of Silvia and took the hit. Instead of him being taken over, it was simply drawn in and seemingly digested. "Why do you think they call me NEGA-Morph," said NegaMorph, "I was created from Soul Shades and you can't control me." He then tackled Chang, with the intention of ripping off some of her scales with his claws. Silvia joined in, grabbing a branch of all things.

DD just watched for a second as the two villains proceeded to vent some stress before looking at Draco and Contrinus. "Ah, my loyal minion, I remember you," he said advancing on them. Draco growled. "I never served you willingly. And you don't have Piton to pull the strings for you now." Dark Dragon smirked. "True," he said pulling out a soul shade and seemingly threw it at Draco who dodged it. "Missed, your aim needs work," taunted Draco. "Who said I was aiming at you? Hold him, my dear," said DD smoothly.

Draco looked to see Contrinus's feathers turning dark and her eyes turning red. "As you can see, outside of humans, the shades can only affect the victim's coloration. But their control is just as affective." Contrinus's color scheme was now very dark, gold was now dark grey, purple and orange was now black, her red feathers were a bloodier color, the three feathers on her head that changed colors and hardened into red spikes, and her beak now resembled that of a condor. "Contrinus, it's me," said Draco, "I know it's really you in there. I don't want to hurt you." Contrinus however gave an eagle-like shriek and extended her talons for battle. Draco could only wince as Contrinus launched herself at him.

--

Outside the park, Warden had summoned everyone that could be ready. Dressed in National Guard uniforms, they were blocking the roads to the park as well as bringing in more or less everything, from circling Hawk and Hornet VTOL gunships to scorpion and grizzly battle tanks. Matt looked at the force. "Believe me, I don't think even this'll be enough. You need to blow a hole in DD's leg to get his attention," he said.

"Doubt you could even get to him with this stuff," said Chip, "I've got a good feeling that only magic can penetrate this wall. You could try with the tanks, but that'd waste ammo." Several newer-looking tanks were rumbling in as Chip said that. The turrets had the telltale signs of heavy duty plasma cannons. "These should help, at least to make a hole to get Contrinus and Draco out," said Chris. "That depends on what kind of ammo's in that thing," said Chip, "I'm pretty sure magical shields are resistant to most forms of conventional weaponry." "2000 watt plasma, the sort used in heavy duty shield smasher rounds on cruisers," said Chris, patting one of the guns and wincing due to the simple fact that plasma gets HOT! "Ok, then how do we keep the rest of the blasts from not damaging any other building?" asked Chip. Matt said, "They're precise, even we can't miss a 3 block wide target."

Just then a medium-sized hole appeared in the shield, the size that allow one person to go through. "Those things aren't the kind that go so fast you can't see anything, right?" asked Chip. Matt shook his head. He could hear a faint whispering...like the sound wind made going through the leaves on a tree. "It'll be fine, but I doubt it'll last long. I'll go ahead, send in the teams when you punch a nice big doorway," he said and started heading for the hole. "We can't just let him go in without backup," said Brooklyn. "I don't know who this Dark Dragon guy is," said Broadway, "but he isn't going to hurt my friends." Matt jumped through the hole which immediately began to seal like an invisible zip was running from the top to the bottom. Brooklyn and Broadway quickly scurried in after Matt before the doorway closed. "Matt looks like he might be able to face the Dark Dragon," said Chip, "But I'm not taking any chances. I'm going to get some specialized help."

--

The park inside was pitch black and seemed wreathed in purple mist. Matt looked around. "Ok, what gave me such a galaxy-sized bad idea?" he muttered. There were signs of struggles around the park, but no bodies, apart from one in a fountain that was definitely not a local.

--

The T-X was running a system check. The power surge from the Chang subject had caused damage that would not be easily fixed. Now NSC forces were around the area. Mission success was at 3%...but maybe the three local lifeforms could aid in defending the commander...

--

Broadway looked at the T-X and asked, "What kind of robot is that?" "An empire one I think...they like droids to do their dirty work." said Matt. "You arrreeee...Cap...cap...Captain Lynch. Subje-je-ject Chang is in...area-a-a-a-a-a in museum." it stuttered, eyes flickering. It was obviosuly crippled. "What about the others?" asked Matt. "Sti-sti-still in comba-ba-ba-ba-bat. One has be-e-e-e-en infected-ted-ted wi-wi-with unknown conta-conat-contagion." Matt went pale. DD only used one 'unknown contagion'. "Which subject was contaminated?" he asked. "Ex-ex-ex-ex-per-per-per-i-i-meeeeent..." Its sentence went unfinished as it went offline. Matt swore and smashed the droid's head in a fit of gargoyle rage before he got it under control. "Can't this guy leave me in peace?" he snarled, eyes glowing for a second.

"Well, they can't be too hard to find in an area this size," said Brooklyn, "Shall we spread out and look for them?" "If we split up He can pick us off one at a time. This guys a certifiable nightmare." said Matt. "He almost destroyed an alternate New York." "So, we stick together?" asked Broadway. "As much unquestionably possible," said Matt. Several growls came from the bushes and two of the shade mutants came into view. "And there are two really good reasons to." said Matt

---

Demona was reading a book when he heard a knock on her door. "Whoever's disturbing me better either have a good reason or good running legs," she growled as she checked her security cameras. Chris was outside with two marines. He was looking at the ground to his side, saying something to an unseen companion. Unfortunately there was no sound over the camera feed. Demona snarled to herself and went to answer the door. If that human had the gall to bring soldiers with him, it had to be something of importance. Chris was standing there. "...telling you, I read Demona's file. She won't help us, Chip." he said to…a trash can?

Demona looked down to see the 'trash can' extend limbs from its sides and bottom and a large pop out of the top. "Ah, Demona," said Chip, "I'm hoping we're not interrupting anything of importance this evening." "What do you want?" demanded Demona. In truth, she had no hard feelings towards the alien, but she didn't like humans on her private property. "Well, there's been a rather significant incident down at Central Park," said Chip. "A real nasty dude from our end of the blocks making a bid for the usual...world overlord," said Chris.

"And you've come to me why?" said Demona, crossing her arms. "Well, Draco and Contrinus were in the area where he is and he's set up a shield of magical nature around it," said Chip. Demona looked at them. "He's using magic and your human friends cannot get to him." she said. "Why should I help you save these humans?" Chip opened his chest compartment and pulled out a top hat. He held it up to his chest and said, "Miss, Draco is extremely close to me. He was created at the same time as me. He's as closely related to me as a genetic experiment can get. The equivalent of a brother to me. And Contrinus is to be his future mate someday. Were it not for the great adversary we both share, they would be joined by now." Demona rolled her eyes and said, "If you're going to grovel, you could try to be a bit more convincing." Then Chip did something pretty brave; he actually gotten down on his knees, or the best he could with his four spider-like legs. "Please," cried Chip, "I'm begging you. I don't have anyone else to turn to." He also managed to secrete some wiper fluid, which was the closest thing to tears he could produce.

Chris decided to add something else. "Hey, how long do you think it'll be until DD turns his attention towards the clan after he nukes the human population?" "Oh, very well, I'll see what I can do," said Demona, "I probably can't bring down the entire shield, but I should be able to create an opening for a few individuals to get through." "And one of those individuals will be me," said Chip as he got up, "but first, I've got to fetch a few things."

--

Matt blasted one of the lunging shades into a tree, knocking it out and forcing it to vacate its host. A second one lunged at Brooklyn, shrieking. "Just how many of these things does this guy have?" asked Brooklyn as he slammed the shade with his tail. "I'll ask next time I see him," said Matt, punching another one in the face. The apparent last one tried to jump on Broadway's back and was flipped into the fountain for its troubles. It got up and was stunned by a plasma burst from Matt that shot into the fountain and electrocuted it. "Well, if that's all Dark Dragon has we're..." he said turning to see 12 new arrival shades glaring, "...totally screwed," he finished

Then a lightning bolt shot out and blasted several shades off their feet. Matt turned to see Silvia blowing some smoke from her finger. "Figures you're here as well," said Matt nonchalantly, "I'm guessing NegaMorph's here too?" The shadows from several trees suddenly came to life, swiping the remaining shades around like ten-pins. The shadows flowed together to reveal NegaMorph. "Of course," the experiment said smugly. "Whoop-de-doo," said Matt, "Of course since the Dark Dragon's practically a shade-churning factory, it's only a matter of time before we're swarmed again."

Silvia nodded. "Good point, you know, your voice is...Matt? What in the empire's name?" she said, catching on to the voice coming from the new gargoyle before she and Nega started sniggering. Matt had a look of a wolverine who had mistaken a prickly pear for something to sit on. "Yes, DD blasted me with a reality gun, so I'm a gargoyle like Kala. You might as well let it all out and get it over with." The villains did just that until they were crying from it, (well, Silvia was at least).

"So, do you know anything useful? Like where they are or where Draco and Contrinus are? If not then get lost," he said in a dangerously calm tone of voice. "We saw them, but we got separated after the Dark Dragon showed up," said Silvia when she regained control of herself, "He and Chang are probably in a more secure area where they can monitor their creatures. Now where would that be?" However, NegaMorph had not finished having his kicks yet. "Hey Matt," said NegaMorph, "You and Kala figured out how gargoyles mate yet?" That was sadly the last straw as Matt lunged and tackled NegaMorph. It was just as well that their fighting made a dustcloud too thick to see through. From the sounds of things, Matt was making things extremely uncomfortable if the crunching noises were anything to go by.

A knotted form, apparently NegaMorph, was thrown into a tree so hard it wrapped round it a few times. Matt strolled out of the cloud. "Now that was extremely good for stress," he said happily.

"Yes, well, we still need to find the Dark Dragon and Chang," said Brooklyn, "We'll need a bloodhound or something to track those creeps down." "Did somebody call for a bloodhound?" called a voice. They looked up to see Chip, covered with black and indigo circuit lines, rocket-kneepads keeping him hovering up the ground, and Chupy being held in his arms. Kala was also hovering beside him.

Matt looked over at them. "What the hell? How did you get here?" he said before barely ducking as Chupy tried to give him a greeting brainsuck. "I called in a favor from the local sorceress," said Chip as he and Kala landed, "but I'll have to see to some computer program she's having problems with." Just then NegaMorph tumbled out of the tree. He was apparently a little disoriented because when he saw Kala, he said in a befuddled voice, "Hey Kala... You and Matt make a nice couple... When's the wedding?" Then he fell over for a short nap. Matt looked over at NegaMorph then shrugged. "Don't mind him. I experimented to see how many times he can be twisted round himself. I got to 30,000," he said with a smirk.

Just then, there was some rustling in the bushes. Everyone tensed for an attack when Draco stumbled out, scratches all over him. "Draco!" said Chip excitedly, running over and giving him a hug. "I was so worried the Dark Dragon would have corrupted you again. Where's Contrinus?" Draco rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Well, funny you should bring up those two subjects..." The gang listened as Draco explained what had happened what had happened. Matt wasn't convinced. "No, I can't believe Contrinus would attack you, so effectively. She's not a combat type," he said. Suddenly he heard an eagle-like shriek and he turned to see Contrinus divebombing him. Before he could react, she was scratching and pecking at his head. He managed to grab her and tossed her off. Contrinus managed to turn her fall into a flip and landed facing them. "Ok, so she has gone to the dark side," he said.

"I've been trying to reason with her," said Draco, "But that soul shade has way too much control over her. He ducked as she threw a dark fireball at him. Matt and Kala tried to grab her and were blasted back. "Kala, you have a soul shine, if we tire her out enough, you might be able to exorcise her," said Chip as Contrinus started pecking at him. Kala managed to grab her and was shocked as nothing happened…and was thrown into Brooklyn.

"This'll be trickier than expected," said Chip, "We'll just have to capture her then." Just then, Chupy leaped at Contrinus. "Chupy! Don't be a hero!" called Matt. Chupy latched on and proceeded to suck Contrinus's blood. Contrinus didn't seem to notice at first but when she did she shrieked and began running around. Evil is evil, but a bloodsucking demon always demands attention and gets it. Eventually, she started loosing speed and her shrieks lost a lot of their vim. Then she stopped running and fell over. "Good boy, Chupy," said Draco, "Now drop." Chupy didn't want to at first until Matt threatened to blast it. It whined in an annoyed tone and then attacked NegaMorph instead. That promptly woke NegaMorph back up.

"The reason we brought him with us," said Kala over NegaMorph's yelling, "is if we needed to track anybody. And from what we heard before you landed, that someone is DD and Chang. Do you have anything that has their scent on it?" Matt looked over at Contrinus. "Her shade'll have it all over her." he said. Draco carefully plucked a feather and said, "This will have to do. Now if we can just get Chupy's attention off of NegaMorph for a while..."

Chupy sniffed it and made a face like it had sniffed something bad before looking around and running off. "Hey, he got the scent," said Kala. A shriek was heard. Brooklyn went over, looked and winced, "No he hasn't, it's that lawyer lady."

--

After Chupy had been prized off Miss Margot he'd headed on a direct beeline for the Central Park zoo. "Knowing him," said Draco, "He'll probably be in the reptile house." "Actually," said Broadway, "I bet he's over by the lions, seeing how he wants to be king and all." "Just a minute, Chupy hasn't finished tracking yet," said Matt. Chupy sniffed the air and made an even more direct beeline... towards the steakhouse for the carnivores. "I guess I should have seen that coming."

Broadway looked down at Contrinus. "How long do you think it'll take for her to come round? That chupacabra went a bit overboard," he asked Draco, not noticing Contrinus starting to twitch. "Well, Contrinus does have advanced healing capabilities, shouldn't take her body too long to replenish that blood," said Draco, "Maybe we should contain before she-" Contrinus started up with another angry shriek, "...wakes up."

Matt and Kala turned in time to see Contrinus blast Broadway and grab Draco. "My master shall have your hide," said Contrinus, her voice echoing because of the soul shade. "So long as I'm still in it," said Draco as he wrapped himself around her, "Chip! Get that capture gun ready!" Contrinus closed her eyes and black lightning crackled over her body and over Draco, tossing him off and into Chip. "Worthless, what did I see in you?" she said and flew off. Chip patted Draco's shoulder and said, "Don't pay attention to what she said. That was the soul shade talking. Now would you mind getting off of me?" Matt helped Draco up. "Well, we're definitely going into the feeding house," he said.

--

Chang looked up in a bored way as Contrinus flew in via a window. "Back already?" she said. Contrinus bowed and said, "The ones who would oppose you are coming this way." Chang looked furious. "YOUR ORDERS WERE TO KILL THEM, NOT LEAD THEM HERE!" she yelled, walking towards the experiment. The Dark Dragon smirked, "Calm yourself. I wanted to get rid of them personally anyway." "I would prefer that at least some were wiped out before they attacked," said Chang, "Our current winning streak doesn't show for much." DD just smirked, "I doubt that they will be much of a threat for much longer. The shield means that annoying human cannot call in his friends, or their machines."

Just then, there came a hammering on the door. Then the sound of blasting and slashing was heard before the door opened, like a jigsaw puzzle. Matt, grinning like the loon he was said "Morning." before ducking a magic blast that almost removed his head. "Is that any way to greet visitors?" he called. "You are never welcome," said Chang as she fired a blast at Matt. Matt ducked the blast too slow and was sent into a spin as it clipped his shoulder. Chang heard a shriek and saw a red eyed pinkish-red gargoyle lunging at her

Chang was tackled over by the female gargoyle and her staff was sent flying out of her hands. Chang kicked the gargoyle off and said, "I don't know who you are, but you're to regret doing that." Brooklyn grabbed her from behind. "Try someone more experienced with jerks like you," he said before DD blasted him off.

"Little annoyance, Chang, try and do your job," he said, sending a few more fireballs at Draco and Chip who were busy with Contrinus. "Irksome little creatures," said the Dark Dragon, "When I gain control of the world, they'll be the first to go, after humans of course." Then he felt a zap of electricity from behind. "How about to try a full-sized experiment?" said Silvia. DD didn't seem impressed. "You...helping them?" he said and was knocked on his butt by another blast. "Well, it's better then putting up with you," Silvia taunted. "That would make sense," said the Dark Dragon, "but don't have other business here?" Silvia was about to reply when her tracker began beeping urgently. "Oh no, not now," she began until DD punched her into a wall. "Idiot," said DD, not noticing that her distraction attempt hadn't been made up.

Suddenly, what looked like five black metallic vines burst out of the floor. The vines whipped in every direction, zapping anyone who touched one with an electrical zap. Then a large plant-like being came up out of the floor. The vines were attached to the creature where its legs would be. What wasn't made of black metal on it was a pale corpse-like color. Bolt-like outlets were on its chest and shoulders and it had two large lightning rods on its back as well as smaller ones running down from it. Its head was partially covered by a large flytrap, but its one green eye and sideburned face could be clearly seen, as well as the halved hourglass symbol on its waist. "What is that thing? Frankenvine?" said Silvia. "Vicktorvine, actually," said the hybrid alien with a deep voice, "but that works too."

Matt stared. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding," he began and tossed a few plasma blasts. Omnirus, AKA Vicktorvine shrugged them off then shocked Matt into a wall. "Don't you ever learn?" he said before suddenly noticing Dark dragon and Chang. "Who the hell are you two?" he said in a bored tone. "I was about to ask you the same question," said the Dark Dragon, "I have enough enemies to deal with at the moment without more of their allies popping out of the ground." "Oh, I'm no ally," said Vicktorvine, "I'm only here to get in on the action."

Silvia tossed a lightning bolt at the hybrid alien, "This is a private fight, get lost!" Vicktorvine barely flinched, "You call that lightning? This is lightning!" The generators on his back lit up and lightning bolts started shooting out of the 'teeth' of his trap. Silvia managed, "Oh smeg," before being literally blasted out a concrete wall without stopping.

Matt managed to get up and roared, lunging at Vicktorvine. "GET YOUR LITTLE MUTANT TENTACLE THINGS OFF MY SISTER!" he yelled, tearing into the experiment. Vicktorvine's eye opened a little in suprise, "Looks I'm not the only one trying to upgrade their appearances. Interesting look, bit outdated though." He wrapped one of his electrically-charged vines around Matt and threw him the Dark Dragon, with a couple of extra lightning bolts thrown in as well. It seemed that DD and Matt had a tiny bit in common. Maybe it was part of DD's host's personality fighting to the surface but they both yelled "THATS IT!" and fired respective blasts at Vicktorvine at the same time. The impromptu alliance came to a halt when Matt looked to his left, saw his fellow shooter and decked DD in the jaw. As Vicktorvine tried to get up, the cracked Omnitrix symbol on his waist flashed red and he was back to Omnirus. "Hmm, guess playtime's over," he said and he quickly went back down the hole he came. Nobody noticed him going as the original fight had resumed itself.

But it seemed that, like all good fighters, DD and Matt were not appreciative of intruders on their personal fights. "I'll give you a free shot at him if you want," said Matt. "Gladly," said the Dark Dragon and sent a fireball down the hole, "Now as for you. Since you seem to be resilient to ranged firepower, I think this will require something more closely ranged." Before Matt knew it, the Dark Dragon caught Matt's neck in his mouth and started squeezing it in a powerful death grip. "Oh, dammit," said Matt then remembered something with a grin. 'Good old Megan, I'll buy her a battlecruiser if this works' he thought. DD let go of Matt's neck with a gasp as Matt forced his gargoyle foot into his nads, hard. "That's... weakling's fighting," he wheezed out. "No, this is weakling's fighting," said Matt as he started giving the Dark Dragon a Dutch rub. Matt finished the noogie by spinning DD head first into a support pillar with a satisfying crunching noise. The Dark Dragon slowly got back up, looking rather dazed from his head trauma.

Meanwhile, Kala and Chang were still going at each other. "Looks like you've put too much stock in your master," said Kala. Chang sneered. "YOU put too much faith in your friend's power, he's only a weak human," she said before swiping at Kala. "If he's such a weak human, then why's he kicking your master's butt, again?" taunted Kala, "Seems to me the 'Dragon of Darkness' isn't as cracked up as he used to be." Chang glared and fired a few more dark energy blasts in the form of spears at Kala until Broadway tackled her. "No creature of magic can defeat me," said Chang as she grabbed her staff, "Not even a fat buffoon like you." "Then how about a creature of science?" said Chip as V-Quip reconfigured his hands into energy cannons. Chang managed a bored sounding, "Oh no," before being blasted off her feet, out the same wall as Silvia...and sadly into the same water fountain that Silvia had landed in And it just so happens that electricity experiments and water made for interesting reactions. There was a loud crackling of electricity as Silvia accidentally gave off a charge. And since Chang was still hanging on to her staff, it also got zapped. Magical staves were designed to contain energy, but there's only so much one could contain before it overloaded. And that's what happened to Chang's staff.

The resulting kaboom deposited Chang back in the building in a dazed and gently smoking heap. "Nice shot," said Brooklyn to V-Quip and Chip. "It's all in the company you keep," said Chip. "You said it," said Draco, "speaking of which, can someone give me a hand with Contrinus over here?" But it didn't seem like Draco needed a hand much longer as Contrinus started giving off irregular squawks and seemed to be having a kind of seizure.

Dark Dragon stared. "No," he said, recognizing that Contrinus's shade was having the magical equivalent of a flat battery. He extended his power to try and recharge it until Matt hit him on the head as hard as he could. Suddenly a sound like glass cracking filled the air. Several of them looked up to see large cracks appearing in the shield covering the park. "Hmm, looks like you're plan is, if you permit the pun, crumbling," said NegaMorph. A distant boom indicated that Chris and the blockade troopers had spotted the cracks too and were making full use of it.

The Dark Dragon glared at Matt and said, "This is hardly a final defeat. Next time, I won't allow you to be a factor in it. This body is not as powerful as my first, but it will be so eventually." That was what gave Matt the idea of the day, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to be a factor in your plans anymore, cause you're not going to have any more plans." He grabbed DD and forced him up eye to eye and began muttering something. Energy crackled over DD who went wide eyed, recognizing the language that Matt was saying and what it was doing.

Broadway nudged NegaMorph with his elbow and said, "If you want to take any more potshots at this guy, it looks like it's your last chance to do so."

"Oh no you don't," said the Dark Dragon as he got his claws around Matt's neck, "I will not be going back so-" The Dark Dragon's words were blocked out when a large blob of black goo was launched into his mouth. "I think we've had enough your boasting," said NegaMorph as he re-grew the foot he had thrown. Matt wasn't listening in any case. Finally a blast of light poured out of DD's mouth and eyes and a black mist rose into the air before being sucked into a portal. "Good riddance," said Matt, letting the now unconscious ex-host go gently.

Silvia had just gotten out of the fountain as the Dark Dragon's former body reverted back to Alan. "Looks like you're out of a job," said Silvia. Chang looked worried and turned to leave. Silvia innocently stuck her foot out as Chang tried to run past, sending her sprawling back into the fountain. Chang, spluttering got up to be nose to nose with about 15 MA5B assault rifles. "Going our way?" taunted Chris.

---

Later, Matt and Kala were back at Wyvern Castle. Chang was with the proper authorities in her own world and now the rest of the night was all to themselves, which wasn't much since dawn was half an hour away. Matt looked out over the city. "I dunno about the 'night-shift-only' part of this job, but the view that comes with it is definitely first class," he said jokingly. Inside he was furious that DD had caused so much mayhem in so little time. His job was to stop dragon council threats from messing via Nullspace and DD had not only nearly done a repeat of the Fang Stone, but had almost recruited Contrinus to his cause. Kala had a way of knowing what was really on Matt's mind. "Matt, the threat's over. The Dark Dragon's gone for good. You won't have to worry about him again."

The comm in Matt's ear beeped. "Sir?" said the voice of Warden. "Yeah? What's up? I was about to turn in for the ni...the day," said Matt. Warden continued. "Lieutenant Techo has finished analyzing the reality gun that the Dark Dragon used. I am happy to report that the field is deteriorating rapidly and should be dispersed in a matter of minutes...sir?" he said as Matt didn't reply. Matt wasn't quite sure how to feel. On one side, he felt he should be relieved. However, a small part of him wanted to stay another night with Kala like this. "Have you gotten any info as to when Kala's will wear off?" he asked. "Techo predicts that it should deteriorate by the end of the week, sir..." replied Warden, "Would you like me to comm Pilot Alice to send a Pelican for you?" "Uh, sure, just give me a few minutes," said Matt. "How long?" asked Warden. Matt forgot that there were some things the AI took more literally than others. "How about a minute after sunrise?" he said. "Very well, sir," said Warden, "I'll tell Pilot Alice at once." Warden began to say, "Will there be anything el...?" and was cut off as Matt absently crushed the comm earpiece in his head. "Where were we?" he said to Kala.

"What was that about?" asked Kala. "Warden just gave me the head's up on the reality guns' affect on us?" said Matt. "And?" said Kala expectedly. "I'll be back to normal in a few minutes and you'll be back to normal by the end of the week." "Oh," said Kala, a slight bit of disappointment in her voice, "I was kinda hoping we could spend the next couple nights together." "Yeah," said Matt, "I wouldn't have minded that."

The two of them watched the sky grow lighter. The other gargoyles were already taking their positions on the tower, but Kala preferred to stay with Matt. "Say Matt," said Kala, rubbing her shoulder, "You know what the others have been saying? About us?" "Yes," said Matt, slightly stiffly, "Of course I think some of them had gotten the message of not making fun of it, Morph in particular." Matt took a glance towards the black smudge on the wall that had a clear spot in the shape of Morph's silhouette.

"Well," said Kala, "Have you ever actually considered it?" Matt sighed and said, "Kala, when I first met you, you were a simple-minded experiment whose only mental capacity was obeying her master, which just happened to be me. But since then, you've matured quite magnificently into what could easily pass as a fine young woman. But there are too many things separating us." "Such as?" asked Kala. "Species, enemies, professions," said Matt, counting them off on one hand. Kala put her hand on top of that hand and said, "They're not a problem right now." Matt looked at Kala and said, "This won't last." "Then let's make this moment count," said Kala. She pulled Matt's head towards hers and kissed him on the lips. Matt enjoyed it for a minute then pulled away. "I'm sorry, but it just can't be," he said. "Maybe someday," said Kala. Then the sun came up. As Kala turned to stone, Matt became human, only less painfully than Demona. "Yeah, someday," said Matt moodily as he waited for his ride to come.

* * *

There's another chapter. In case you're wondering, the Dark Dragon and Chang are from American Dragon: Jake Long. They had previously appeared in The Dragon Within. Also, Omnirus's hybrid form is a mixture of Wildvine and BenVicktor/Frankenvolt, this is another one of the 'official' Omnitrix hybrids that were made, he can probably be found on deviantART. And here's a further look into Matt and Kala's relationship. Definitely worth noting. Next chapter will have some old Gargoyles enemies, so keep an eye out for it. Please review.


	8. Experimentation

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 8: ****Experimentation**

It would be a normal peaceful day, only the missed laser fire at the running mutant disturbed the quiet. Silvia swore as another laser blast just missed Omnirus. "Gah, won't that little twerp stay still?" she said angrily. Then Omnirus stood on his upper hands and waved his behind at his pursuers. "Evidentially, he was made from a batch of the 626 brand," said NegaMorph as he fired a blast at the aforementioned area. Omnirus yelped as the blast struck. "Memo, don't do that taunt again till I'm sure they're running on empty," he muttered, taking off running again.

"We'll get him eventually," said Silvia, "He can't just disappear on us." Suddenly there was a flash of light and NegaMorph, "Shouldn't be too hard to track him, he just turned into another hybrid alien." The two hunters walked off. After a minute a ghostly head stuck out of the ground. "Good, they're gone. Idiots," said Omnirus/Ghostjaws. The invisible alien floated away, muttering to himself, "This is getting to easy. Why don't they send someone competent to try to catch me?"

As soon left the city and started drifting outside in a grassy area where he returned to his normal form. "There isn't a single person on this planet that could possibly lay a hand on-" His bragging was cut short when a net suddenly covered him. Several people in gas masks and armor came out of hiding. "Dammit. This ain't a gargoyle," said one. The other shrugged and said "Who cares? Use the gas." The first guy tossed a grenade in front of Omnirus. Omnirus tried to tear the net apart, but it was made of a very elastic material that resisted any force exerted on it. And when the grenade started leaking out some kind of gas, Omnirus found harder to fight. In fact, he was finding it hard to stand up. Within a few seconds, he fell over on his side, totally knocked out.

At Sevarius' lab...

Dr. Sevarius was having a field day. His men had just brought him the most fascinating specimen. Right now, he was waiting for it to wake up. The small creature slowly sat up and blinked his eyes. "Ah, greetings," said Sevarius slowly, "Can you speak English?" Omnirus stared at him and said, "Go smeg yourself." Sevarius smirked. "That will be a yes then..." he began and flinched a bit as Omnirus threw himself at the walls of his cell. "I'm not in a good mood. Let me out so I can beat you senseless," said Omnirus. "Seeing how you are so preferable to violence, I don't believe that will be wise," said Sevarius, "This cage has specifically designed by my employer to be completely indestructible from the inside and inescapable."

"Wanna bet?" said Omnirus as he slapped his Omnitrix logo and transformed into Diamondblast. He converted his arms to flaming spikes and tried to slice through the bars. The bars flared with electricity, shocking Omnirus till he changed back and slumped down weakly. "Have you calmed down yet?" taunted Sevarius. "I'm just getting warmed up," said Omnirus as he turned into Vicktorvine. He tried using his electrical attacks against the bars, but they just flinged it back. And of course a physical attack just caused him to be shocked back to Omnirus. Sevarius smirked. "Oh I doubt you'll break free. It was designed for someone else, but it seems to hold you just as well," he said.

Omnirus pulled over a chair and sat down. "Well, now that you've grown accustomed to your new home, let's begin with the formalities, I am Dr. Anton Sevarius, the top genetcist in the world. Am I believe that you are of extraterrestrial origins?" Omnirus made a 'duuuuh' noise. "Ya think?" he said rudely. Sevarius frowned slightly and said, "Well, do they have names for you creatures where you come from? And exactly how is it you can exist? From the glimpse I've seen of your DNA, your entire genome's of a recombinant nature." "I'm a genetic experiment, the clue's in the name. Hell, I've met dumb humans but...well," he said, enjoying the angry look he got in return.

Then Omnirus heard laughing. He turned to see another creature inside a cage like him. But this one resembled an anthro puma with bat wings. "Sounds like your new project's got personality issues," said the puma creature. Omnirus for once was surprised. "What the hell are you?" he said, staring at the creature before remembering. "You're one of that Talon guy's mates..." he said angrily. "Ah, yes," said Sevarius, "This is one of my earlier projects, an attempt to recreate gargoyles from similar creatures. Not prone to the vulnerability of stone sleep and capable of shooting bolts of electricity. He prefers to be called Claw." Omnirus shrugged. "Not very original." he said. "And what do you call yourself?" taunted Claw, "Minus Eyes? Six Ears?" "More like 'Oh God No', that's what all my other victims said," said Omnirus.

"Well, we'll all have a chance of getting to know each other quite well for the next couple months," said Sevarius, "I intend on finding out how you tick and using it for my research. It should prove quite useful." Omnirus, despite himself, began to consider that maybe it would have been better to have let Silvia and NegaMorph catch him...

--

It was unusually quiet for a night in New York. The criminals had apparently taken a holiday, Warden was quietly looking for Silvia's HQ and even Omnirus's signal had vanished. Matt and the crew had been invited to movie night at the Labyrinth and Matt had been forced to order Contrinus to go, who was still feeling guilty over her actions while processed by a soul shade. "For the last time," said Matt, "You had no control over yourself at the time, stop blaming yourself." "How do I know those weren't my darker feelings amplified?" asked Contrinus. "Oh lord, is everyone around here so angsty?" groaned Matt. Talon gave Matt an angry growl. "Oh, sorry."

Kala had come along too as the clan had come too. "Erm, Matthew?" she asked. Matt turned, a bit surprised at Kala using his full name. "Yes?" he asked a bit off balance. "About last week just after that Dark Dragon thing, did you mean what you said?" she asked. She had obviously been thinking about it. Matt froze. For the first time ever, he had no idea how to answer, be it serious or annoying. "I...er...OH LOOK, POPCORN!" he said desperately before homing in on the popcorn that had been made for the movie. As Matt got some popcorn, Fang, who had heard the entire thing, walked over and gave him a disapproving look. "I know, I know, it was lame," said Matt, "But what could I say? 'I can't be your boyfriend because we're completely different species and at war?' That doesn't fly much, does it?" Fang just crossed his arms. "Ok, it's really ropey, but this is a lot harder than you think. I don't think you've had quite the romantic history that I've had." Fang continued to stare as if expecting Matt to say some of that history. "Not a chance," he said thinking back to Endra and... "Let's watch the movie, the Matrix never gets old."

Meanwhile, Draco and Chip were trying to cheer up Kala. "Forget about him," said Draco, "You're better off alone. He walks funny. Even looks funny. People shoot lasers at him." "How can you be so cold-blooded?" demanded Chip. "I'm a reptile," said Draco, flicking his tongue at Chip. A plasma blast hit Draco in the butt. "I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW! I'M DOCKING YOUR CAKE RATIONS!" called Matt, his smoking hand still aimed.

Chip wasn't satisfied with this, "Listen, you Jurassic twit, Kala deserves someone who loves her. Someone, who'd hold her in his arms." As Chip was deep in thought, one of his arms snaked out, grabbed Draco by the neck, and pulling him into too close for him to get away. "Who'd, run his fingers through her hair." Chip ran his hand over Draco's scalp until he plucked off a loose scale. "Look deeply in her eyes and make her feel like a real woman." Chip then placed a big kiss on Draco's lips. About three seconds later, the two of them realized what they've done and started spitting and gagging uncontrollably. "Ugh," cried Draco, "I got your tongue on my gums! Bleh!"

Matt went wide eyed, regretting his experiment augmented hearing, and more importantly, his graphical imagination. "God I need some mind bleach stat," he muttered. Draco and Chip's debate may have not helped Kala get over her emotional dilemma, but it certainly helped cheer her up. She laughed loudly until she nearly fell over. "We never speak of this again," said Chip as he started brushing his mouth. "Agreed," said Draco as he started flossing. "And I'll arrange a mind wipe if you want," said Matt before stopping as his fav scene came on.

Kala, despite her laughing was still thinking. She wasn't concentrating when she felt someone sit down near her. "Thinking about something?" asked a voice. Kala turned to see Maggie sitting beside her. "Oh? Oh, hello. Yes..." she said, looking over at Matt as he tried to stop Morph from stealing the popcorn, without much success it should be noted. "Oh, I understand," said Maggie. "Really?" said Kala. "Certainly," said Maggie, "Every woman has trouble getting their relationship started." "I'm not even sure if there is a relationship," said Kala. "Well, if you don't mind me asking," said Maggie, "What exactly is it you see in him? He seems a little..." She looked at Matt, who was trying to force Morph's butt into Morph's mouth, "odd." Kala shrugged. "I don't know. He's caring if you don't try to break his ship..." she said, ducking as Matt tossed the now rolled-up Morph across the room to have him rebound and land in one of the wastepaper bins, "...or his popcorn." she finished. "Well, exactly what problems are you having with him?" asked Maggie. "It's nothing personal," said Kala, "It's just that I'm too different from humans." "Don't worry," said Maggie, "Love will find a way. That's how I started out with Talon."

Meanwhile...

Omnirus was not a happy mutant. Sevarius had sent two of his men to get DNA samples, not that they had been having much luck but Omnirus was not enjoying the attempts either. "Get your hands off of me, you dirty stinking...OW!" Omnirus winced as one of them managed to get a syringe in him. He was able to pull out some of his magenta blood before Omnirus tried to break his arm. "I got it...ARGH!" said the guy right before Omnirus threw the guy out and made for the open cell door. Sadly, Sevarius was next to the controls of the cell. He pressed a button and the cell slammed shut again, almost squashing Omnirus and definitely shocking him again. "I hate this cell," muttered Omnirus.

"You better get used to it," said Sevarius as he examined the blood sample his assistant had gotten, "Since your DNA is apparently made of different parts, it will be very interesting to see what combinations I can make from it. Well, in a few months' time, the first batch of clones will see what can be made of you." "What with? Your toaster? I could knock up a hundred clones in five minutes," taunted Omnirus. "What you working with? A type 3?" he said adding the crown insult, "Frankenstein wannabe." Sevarius however was more intrigued than insulted, "You actually know how to work with genetics? Cloning has become that efficient where you come from?"

"Yes, you complete utter..." he said before stopping. If Sevarius threw together a couple of passable clones and they were caught by the NSC and empire teams, then he would be free to do what he wished. "Need a few pointers?" he said, innocently. "How do I know you're not trying to set me up?" said Sevarius. "What have I got to gain?" said Omnirus, "If the clones kill you, I won't be able to get out of here. Besides, are you really going to pass up on learning some alien cloning techniques?" Sevarius thought about it then pressed the door open button. "It's a deal," he said. "You've made a wise choice," said Omnirus. However, his Galvan brain was distinctly thinking, 'Chump'. That was a coincidence cause the word going through Sevarius's head was 'Sucker'.

With the spare parts available, Omnirus got to work on upgrading Sevarius's cloning machine. Sometimes, he had to change into Stinkgrade to make the necessary improvements, but when he was done, the new cloning machine was far beyond state-of-the-art. Sevarius put the first sample into the machine. "If this works, I'll...We'll be rich," he said as the machine started to work. "Uh-huh, sure," said Omnirus, not really concerned with money, "If I may make a suggestion, I think we should try these sets of DNA first." Sevarius looked at them. "Any particular reason?" he said. Omnirus shrugged, "Just thought they would look cool."

Back at the Labyrinth it was Kala's turn to choose the movie. Kala looked over the selections before picking out 'The Princess Bride'. "Oh, that's a good one," said Chip, "Funny, adventurous, romantic, I gave that one four thumb's up." Matt smirked. "He can too," he commented before going off to fetch more popcorn. While he waited he checked in with Warden. "Anything on Omnirus?" he said. "Not really," said Warden, "thought I've been picking up unusual genetic signatures lately." Matt sighed. "Any Nullspace rifts in accordance with them?" he asked. Warden replied. "No, sir. I have detected a strange reading. An energy signal has been detected. It is similar to several gene splicing equipment found in NSC gene therapy clinics." Matt wondered that. He'd have been commed in if there had been an NSC lab in the area, especially one with genetic therapy tech on the premises. "Keep an eye on it and get me a lock on those genetic signals," he said before signing off. Warden already knew but felt no need to mention. The signals were closing on his location and would be there shortly so there was no need.

At that point, the film was at the point where the Shrieking Eels were. "Whoa, this surround sound's really effective," said Draco, "It sounds like those shrieks are actually nearby." Matt also heard the noises and walked off in their direction, emerging out the door where two of the clones and a female panther mutate were, having also heard it. She turned as Matt turned up. "Hey there," said Matt, "Sarah, is it?" "Sharon, actually," corrected the panther mutate. Matt looked at the recolored clones of Lexington and Brooklyn, "Brentwood and Malibu, right?" The two clones nodded and suddenly cringed as the shrieking was heard again. "What is that?" asked Matt. "I don't know," said Sharon, "But it started about a few minutes ago. And it seems to be getting louder." Matt listened closely for a minute and was able to discern one of the noises as a barking-like sound. Matt ignited a plasma orb and tossed it down the hall, lighting the way and showing exactly what was coming. "What the hell is THAT?" he said.

'That' was some sort of creature, resembling an orange wolf with no eyes. It sensed the heat from the plasma blast and paused. It had baying and yowling with its muzzle, but now the muzzle split open four ways and it let out a sonic howl. "Oh hell," said Matt as the blast pulverized the wall on its way towards the group, knocking them down. "Bloody hybrids," Matt said dizzily before watching the creature step into a puddle. Sharon spotted it too and sent a lightning bolt into it, shocking the creature. But then another lightning bolt shot back at Sharon. But it didn't come from the wolf creature, it came from a large cyborg fly that was flying after it, green electricity flickering between its two wings. "Wow, original...and unlikely. Is Omnirus multiplying?" he said, tossing a hail of plasma rounds into the cyborg fly, apparently blowing out something important in its implants as it went rigid and fell sideways. "What kind of monster..." said Brentwood before several tendrils reached out and wrapped around him. Matt looked to see an odd alien that resembled a plant that was made out of strips of bandage-like material. "Not another one," said Matt. He activated his comm. "Chip, get the others and..." he started only for the newcomer to slash a bandage across it, neatly slicing a piece off it. "Hey! That comes out of my paycheck, you know!" yelled Matt and grabbed one of the tendrils and gave it a hard yank. The bandage plant flew forward and landed next to the wolf creature and the cyborg fly.

Matt got a plasma orb ready to throw in his hand. "Wait," said Sharon, "If you destroy these things, you'll never find out where they came from." "You have a point." said Matt, extinguishing the orb and getting out a dehydration grenade.

Soon afterwards, everyone was looking at the creatures in the lab. "What sort of monstrosities are these?" asked Goliath. "If I had to guess," said Chip, "A Wolfmutt, a Vicktorfly, and a Mummyvine." "They tried to crash the movie, nearly succeeded too," said Matt, tapping the cell door in front of Wolfmutt. "Where could have they come from?" asked Lexington. "This is obviously Omnirus's handiwork," said Draco, "Each one of these is a hybrid of two aliens from the Omnitrix." "How'd he do it though? We'd have noticed a small genetics lab and you need to be a real smart guy to know how to do this," said Matt, looking at Vicktorfly who glared menacingly at him. "Sevarius has produced clones before," said Goliath. "But they've only been here a few weeks," said Angela, "That's not enough time for him to create clones from scratch." "Not unless he and Omnirus have teamed up," said Kala.

"Great. Nutcases 'R Us," said Matt. He jumped as all three clones suddenly tried to lunge at him. The three clones started clawing at their cell doors. "Something tells me we don't want those things loose in here," said Talon he tried to keep Mummyvine's door closed. Matt aimed a continuous plasma blast at Mummyvine until it got the message. "I personally want to meet Sevarius and see how far I can kick him," he said before helping Kala with Wolfmutt's door. But then Vicktorfly surprised them by forcing some words out of his mouth, "Lead...rescue...Omnirus."

Matt looked at Chip. "Did they just ask us to rescue the guy who nearly let Draconus mangle everyone...again?" he asked. "Well, there is the principle of carrier pigeons," said Chip. "But...carrier rabid mutants is pushing it so far that I need a microscope to see it," said Matt. "Ok, how about the concept of St. Bernards then?" Matt looked at them. "No,, they haven't got those barrels of whiskey round their necks," he said.

Then Lexington thought of something, "Uh, do you guys think it's a good idea to leave Omnirus with Sevarius, seeing how he can create a few clones from him?" Matt gulped as his mind supplied him to a city full of Omnirus's. "Oh hell," he muttered. "So we just have these guys lead us back to their creator?" said Draco. Matt looked at them. "How do you know they won't just eat our brains the moment we unlock em?" he responded. Then Vicktorfly spoke again, "No...harm...follow..." "I don't think he's got a complex enough brain to fabricate a lie," said Chip. Matt thought about this and passed one of the mutants a live shock grenade through one of the door hatches. "Lunch," he said. The mutant ate it and was shocked. "Ok, you win," Matt said and started opening Vicktorfly's door, "But if he tries to attack us, he's going to be pinned like an iron butterfly." Vicktorfly seemed to have some self control and punched Matt in the face before flying over him and out. "Follow that robo-bug!" called Draco and flew off after it. The gargoyles quickly followed after him. Matt winced and staggered unsteadily after them, pulling Morph out the bin as he went by.

--

The trail had led the group to a condemned building near the Bronx district. "Well, for villains, Sevarius knows the best place for his lab. Really mood setting, if a bit obvious," said Matt. "Don't see how Omnirus couldn't have gotten out by now," said Draco, "I don't see any defenses." He walked forward and promptly got zapped by something invisible and electric. Matt threw a rock and watched as the rock flew through the field while being reduced to molten rock in the process. "I guess Omnirus didn't just give genetic weapon tech," he said.

"How do we get through?" asked Chip, "I can't see any interface for me to hack into." "My...job..." said Vicktorfly and he started charging up electricity. Matt realized what the clone had in mind and was already responding on automatic to stop him...too late. The clone strolled calmly into the ion field, overloading it but also collapsing into ash. "That was pretty heroic of it," said Kala. "No it wasn't," said Lexington, sounding angry, "He was just responding to Omnirus's programming." Matt nodded, furious at Omnirus's disregard for life. "I'm gonna use that little fuzzball for a basketball if I get to him first," he snarled. The door turned out to be a blastdoor. Matt got there first, not paying attention to the words 'Maddox Industries' emblazoned on it before he vented his fury on it, blowing it apart.

---

"What was that clone doing?" said Sevarius, "He led them right to us!" Omnirus shrugged his shoulders and said, "Haven't the foggiest, maybe it was going on some instinct." A security camera showed what looked like a normal teenager knocking out several burly security guards like it was nothing. He obviously was not was human as he looked given his eyes were glowing solid blue. He suddenly looked up at the camera, aimed his hand, palm first and a blue glow filled the screen right before it became static.

--

The others came in just as Matt blasted the first camera. "What kept you?" he said coolly. "Easy there, Matt," said Draco, "We need to bring these two in alive, remember?" "Are you sure?" said Matt, his eyes flickering red for a second before he got a hold. "Yes...yeah, you're right," he said before looking around and walking over to a guard who was obviously faking. "Hi there, tell me where your boss is and I promise I'll only throw you in the Hudson instead of giving you to my associates," he said, waving at the assembled experiments, gargoyles and mutates." The guard quickly spilled his guts. "That's a good man," said Matt as he picked him up and chucked him out the window. There was a distant cry and an even more distant splash followed by some cursing and a threat or two against Matt if 'that damn asshole' referred to him, which it probably did. Matt smirked as they headed for the main lab.

The lab's door was rather impressive. Half a foot of reinforced steel barring anyone from getting in. Of course the 'anyone' in the sentence primarily applied to humans and gargoyles. "Stitch, if you would do the honors," said Matt. Stitch laughed his trademark evil laugh, extended his extra limbs and leapt at the door, ripping it off its hinges and tossing it out a window. There was another splash and a distant 'Oh, come on...' but nobody paid it any mind. Matt, Lilo and Stitch walked in first. "We were just passing and we heard you make evil mutants and we JUST had to add it to our tour," taunted Matt, plasma orb at the ready.

"What took you so long?" said Omnirus, "I was wondering if I had to get out myself." Sevarius looked down at Omnirus. "You little...you..." he said, words failing him. "Trog?" suggested Matt. "Yeah, yeah, I betrayed you," said Omnirus in a bored tone, "How can you not see that coming? Well, it's been real, and it's been fun, but it ain't been real fun." Then he activated his Omnitrix and transformed into a fish-like creature with a pale upper body, arms that ended with long finned claws, purple eyes, black and white tentacles coming out of his mouth, and a dark grey tail with black stripes and a purple fin on the end. "Oh nuts," said Matt, "That makes Kevin look good. What do ya call that? Mirror's bane?" "Ghostjaws," said the fish alien with a deep rasping voice. He turned and roared at Sevarius, prompting him to scream and run away. Then Ghostjaws started swimming through the air towards the door.

Matt and Lilo both threw their respective energy attacks at GhostJaws to no effect at all apart from wrecking the lab itself, including Sevarius's upgraded equipment. "Hey, come back and fight like a villain!" yelled Matt. Ghostjaws eyed them critically, "Fight like a villain eh?" he said, "Then a villain would take advantage of anyone around who would be of use to him right?" Then Ghostjaws hovered over to Claw's cage and ripped the door off. Before Claw could react, Ghostjaws went into him. "Me and my big mouth." muttered Matt. "Ih," agreed Stitch as the now possessed Claw turned towards them. "Nice, let's see what he can do with a proper fighter at the helm," said Ghostjaw's voice. Matt had to dodge several times to avoid the lightning bolts. "Good thing I've got practice with this," he said. A lucky shot knocked him across the room. "Ow...new variety," he moaned as Claw/Ghostjaws picked up Stitch and began electrocuting him until Lilo shot him in the back with a laser burst.

Then the gargoyles got through the door into the lab, followed by the mutates. "This is starting to get a bit crowded," said Ghostjaws, "I think it's time to go." Then he started flying Claw's body towards the wall, turning intangible as he went. Matt threw a plasma orb, demolishing the wall but not touching the fleeing mutate. "Dammit, come back here and be shot," he yelled out the hole at the mutate's retreating form. "Maybe later," called Ghostjaws, "After I find the one AI I need in this city." Then he turned invisible, allowing him to escape untraceably. Matt glared, picked up a piece of masonry and threw it at where he thought Ghostjaws was. The half-brick missed but carried on to knock the guard from earlier, now out the river and standing on the edge of the river triumphantly, back into the river when it bounced off the guy's head.

The gang arrived back at the Labyrinth. "I can't believe he got away, and who was that guy he took over anyway?" said Matt, wincing as he caught one of the electrical burns Claw had given him. "That was Claw," said Talon, "He was mutated with the rest of us when Sevarius worked for Xanatos, but he took it too well. He tried to overthrow us once and we locked him up. We let him out to help us with a fire, but he escaped." "Looks like he's going to be working for Omnirus now," said Brooklyn. "I doubt it. Omnirus is not a team player," said Matt before getting an idea. "The other mutants could help us find him," he said and headed for the cells. The others caught up to see him staring grimly into the prison room. "What? What are staring-" Matt felt sick when he saw the slime that was on the floors of the cells. "It would appear that their lifespans are notably shorter after creation," said Chip, "Omnirus probably designed these as simple drones."

Matt spoke in a level voice. "I'll kill him. I swear I'll kill him. He's no better then Kurata or Dr Johnson," he said coldly before walking out. Matt was about to march out the door when Kala put her hand on his shoulder, "Matt, he isn't worth it. Those clones weren't fully sentient. Trying to destroy him now won't accomplish anything." "It'll make me feel a whole lot better," said Matt, trying to carry on walking. Kala knew Matt was too angry to listen to common sense, so she tried to use something more painful. "Matt, do you know why the Dark Dragon wanted to use you as a host? It's because your dragon form's like him." Matt stopped dead at this, hands curling into fists as she continued, "Matt, the reason you've attracted so many enemies like that is because they see you as potential for evil. If you try to destroy Omnirus now, you'd be proving how right they are. I don't want to see that." Matt had listened to every word. His fists slowly unclenched and he turned with his usual taunting grin. "I wouldn't give those idiots the satisfaction," he said, "Let's get back inside before Morph eats all that popcorn."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hudson...

"Ok, I appreciate you breaking me out," said Claw, "but I don't want to spend any more time with you." "But have you considered the benefits?" said Omnirus, now back to his default form. Claw had, but he had also decided he did not want this little furry pigmy in his head every time he felt like it. There was a splash and a spluttering noise and both of them turned to see the guard from earlier drag himself out the river. He took one look at them, looked behind him into the river, shrugged, and jumped back in.

Omnirus decided to ignore this and said, "Trust me, we've got a lot in common. We both got our powers through genetic science and we both want to use them for own benefit. You want to get power through the same method as me: destruction. And with my brain, we'd make a team that's meant to be reckoned with." Claw looked tempted and said, "Yeah, but what makes you think I can't do this on my own?" "Simple, you're completely outnumbered, your enemies know how to defeat you, and you don't know how to defend yourself."

"Hey, wait a minute!" said Claw, "I've survived pretty well in this city before you showed up." "But do you really want to be stuck here for the rest of your life?" said Omnirus, "If you join up with me, you'll be seeing different planets in different dimensions. Think about it; sleek spaceships, super-advanced weaponry, hot alien chicks." Claw looked like he was about to give in when there was a sudden ringing in the air. "Hang on a sec, I've got a call," said Omnirus as he pulled out his communicator. "Sir, I have good news," said Omnirus's ship A.I, "I've located the subject whose A.I. you wish to assimilate." "Great," said Omnirus, "Where is he?" He listened for a second and then his face contorted into one of exasperation and annoyance. "You've got to be kidding!"

However, what the two genetic mutants weren't aware of was that the guard didn't jump back into the river because of them. He jumped back in because he has seen two lizard-like creatures with red eyes watching from the shadows. "Shall we see what these creatures taste like?" said one of them. "No," said the other, "The alpha wants to destroy his former tormentors in person. These two shall lead us right to them." Then the pair slinked away into the shadows, leaving no trace of themselves behind.

* * *

There's another chapter. I thought this one was particularly entertaining. Particularly Draco and Chip's kiss, which is based on a similar incident in Quest for Camelot. Also, Ghostjaws, unlike the Omnitrix hybrids that have appeared so far, was not drawn by the creators of Ben 10. Instead, his design is based off of that of Alzatia on deviantART. The final chapter, from where I'm sitting, is probably the next chapter or the one after that. And the next chapter should interesting as we find out what exactly Omnirus is after and what the Infected are planning. Keep an eye out for it and please review.


	9. Mutation pt 1

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 9:**** Mutation pt 1**

The man was running as fast as he could, looking over his shoulder every now and then to see if he was still being pursued. Even if he had wanted the gargoyles to save him, they couldn't. It was the late afternoon, though you couldn't tell from the storm clouds in the sky. He spotted movement behind him and doubled his pace, pulling a trashcan over as he ran past it to try and slow up his pursuers. It wouldn't work. He'd seen them jump a chain link gate that he shut on them in a single bound. A shriek was heard with a crash and he smiled breathlessly. Maybe they weren't as nimble as he'd thought. Maybe he'd have a...

He turned a corner to see all three of his pursuers standing there. They'd tricked him, led him where THEY wanted. The man quickly emptied his pockets and threw the contents to the ground. "There, that's all I have on me, please leave me alone," he begged. The leader walked forward. "You think we want your posessssions?" it hissed, its face hidden by a hood. The man realized that the figures' shapes and postures were all wrong. As he focused, he could see that the fingers were longer then was natural...and pointier. "What...what the hell are you?" he said, backing up in terror. "You'll find out sssoon enough," it said and pulled back the hood. The man screamed as he saw that the face was that of some mutant lizard. The lizard opened his mouth to reveal several fangs when the sound of guns cocking was heard.

"Hold it right there, mutant," commanded a voice. The three creatures whipped their heads round at, well, snakelike speed to see four figures in body armor, their faces hidden by gas masks and night vision goggles. The three mutants shrieked as one and ran at the newcomers only to be cut down by the assault rifles the figures had. "Oh, god...thank you...thank you so..." he began and stopped as the leader said, "He's infected." The man looked down to see a cut on his arm. "No wait...I got that running from..." he said, not finishing as the leader pulled out a berretta and shot him in the face.

"It's just as I feared," said the leader, "They're no longer disorganized. They've apparently acquired someone who knows how to command. We need to stop them before they mutate every human in this city."

Meanwhile, there were two nonhumans who were desperately trying to leave the city. The first, the mutate known as Claw looked over at his companion. "Explain why we're taking this vacation again?" he said as his companion, the mutant experiment known as Omnirus figgled with a ring-like device fixed to the wall. "It appears that I've gotten wrong directions to where I wanted to go," said Omnirus. "Shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque, right?" joked Claw.

"This is serious you...batcat..." said Omnirus, "You saw those things last night did to that homeless guy. There'll be alot more where those came from and I plan to watch it from the dimension next door," he said angrily as a circuit crossed with a shower of sparks. The warp device finally lit up. "Compatible dimension located," it chimed "Big deal," said Claw, "You said it yourself that we're probably immune to their infection." "I don't think I want to take that chance," said Omnirus, "Anyways, there's a lot of people here who want to catch us so they strip away our powers. And you at least will still be existing afterwards. And even if they don't catch us, that shockwave might."

The space in the ring began to ripple and what looked like the same alley began to appear. "Brilliant, a high tech mirror, we're saved," taunted Claw. Omnirus glared at him, "It's a doorway to another New York in another dimension. Now come on." As Omnirus started stepping through, Claw said, "Wait a minute, what's so great about this other New York?" "Well, if you'd rather leave your skeleton in this one, be my guest. Of course, chances are that it'll either be gnawed to bits or flash-charcoaled in about 24 hours."

It was natural with the multiversal Law of Murphy, then that a laser shot through the portal and knocked Omnirus down the alley, off a wall and finally into a trashcan, with the lid shutting on him. "What the-" started Claw and quickly sprang out of the way as something large and fast sprinted through the portal and nearly bowled him over. He didn't get enough time to see what it was, but it had many colors in different patterns. Another laser came through and glanced off the ring-like device on the wall. That caused the mirror-like image to disappear. Omnirus had gotten out of the trashcan in time to see the multicolored blur pass by. He quickly sprang up and brushed off the old tuna can on his head. "Change of plans," said Omnirus, "we're staying here." "What? Why?" demanded Claw. "Because that's the guy I've been looking for in the first place," said Omnirus as he slapped a hand to his Omnitrix symbol. He changed to XLRWolf and quickly zoomed off with Claw following behind him.

On the other side of town...

Matt and Chris were in the park, overseeing the final cleanup from Dark Dragons attack last month. They'd managed to cover up most of the incident but it had taken ages. Now some serial killer was on the loose using illegal NSC ammunition to kill homeless. "So...who'd you would have it in for homeless here?" said Matt as they headed for their Warthog. "Somebody with a lot of time on their hands," said Chris, "They're probably doing it for target practice."

"Well, it's not like whoever's doing this is going to run straight into..." said Matt and was cut off as a blur hit the side of the hog at such a speed that the front was torn clean off. The blur flew erratically along until it hit a wall...and went through it. "Ok...that was painful," said Matt, picking himself up from where he'd been thrown onto the pavement. "Did someone get the number of that train?" asked Chris in a disoriented voice. Matt looked at the hole the blur had left behind. "No, but I got its measurements, about 10 feet tall and 5 across, at the shoulders." He walked slowly towards the hole and peered inside. "Hello? You got insurance?" he said uncertainly. Chris looked up to see a blue and black blur heading for Matt was standing. "Uh, Matt, you should probably-" Chris called before Matt was struck and sent flying several feet into a wall, without leaving a hole in it. "Move," finished Chris.

Matt managed to get up and fired a hail of blasts. "Right you little pain, you are dead," said Matt. A large fist punched through the outside wall of the building, a fist made entirely of green crystal. A few seconds later, the rest of the wall came down to reveal a behemoth with four arms, a tail, wings, and three eyes, none of which were exactly the same color. Matt readied a plasma orb out of instinct and was about to shoot when the figure suddenly seemed familiar. "Kevin?" he said. The creature, which was readying its fiery upper left arm to attack, paused. "You know me?" he asked in a contorted voice. "From his friends perhaps, but I know you from a more direct source," said a voice behind him. Then a wave of sonic energy threw the mutant forward and onto Matt. XLRWolf stepped through the hole. "Kevin 11," he said, "At last we meet."

"You met me in Kryos..." Matt said confused before blasting Omnirus absently. "Private conversation between ex-inmates," he said coldly. Kevin looked at Matt again, "Oh yeah, you were the guy who came with that armored slimeball. How could I forget that?" "Too many plasma blasts to the head?" suggested Matt.

Omnirus blasted Matt again. "This doesn't concern you, Lynch. Get your own ticket off planet and get lost." "I think you're the one who needs to get lost," said Matt. Then he thought of something. He charged a plasma orb with negative molecular energy and threw it at Omnirus's chest. Omnirus didn't dodge and winced as the blast hit him in the chest. When nothing happened he sneered. "Is that the best you..." he began and stopped as the Omnitrix symbol beeped, "...have?" There was a flash of red light and Omnirus reverted back to his default experiment form. "Hey! How'd you do that?" he yelled.

"Who is this guy?" asked Kevin. "The renegade love child of Ben Tennyson and NegaMorph," remarked Chris. Just then a few lightning bolts fell from above. "Oh, and here comes his newly acquired flunkie." Claw had the element of surprise and all the firepower to incapacitate Matt. So it was a shame that he chose to aim at Kevin. "Hey! Back off!" yelled Kevin as threw some diamond shards at Claw. Claw barely avoided becoming a pincushion but he didn't dodge Matt's own shot which sent him out the wall with a crash. "Now then," said Matt as he turned back to Omnirus, "Keep your paws away from the belt buckles and put them in the air." Omnirus shrugged and raised his paws. "It not like we'll be alive this time next week." he sneered.

Chris looked in what remained of the Warthog's glove compartment. "Drat," he said, "I don't have enough handcuffs for all these guys. I'm gonna have to call this one in." Kevin looked over at that. "Hey, you mean those guys, right?" he said. "Sorry, but there's an arrest warrant for you too," said Chris, "I'm afraid we'll have to take you in too." Kevin glared and advanced angrily on Chris. "You are not locking me up you two bit cop...urgh" he said as Matt stunned him in the back. "I really didn't want to do that," Matt muttered. "Yeah," said Chris, "I'd prefer not to turn on someone who had just helped me out." He paused and considered for a few seconds, "Unless it's an enemy of mine who I know will turn on me as soon as the crisis is over." Matt shrugged. "Yeah...and especially not the guy who made sure you survived prison," he said sadly.

--

Kevin woke up to see a glass barrier blocking his way. Matt was standing there, looking grim. "You have a lot of nerve showing your face to me," growled Kevin. "Believe me, if there was some way I could let you go, I could," said Matt, "But you're still a con that still has time to spend." "Last I heard Kryos is back online. Hell, they're hiring cons I heard. You could get out early if I put your name forward," said Matt, sounding like he was trying to apologize with the offer.

Before Kevin could whip out a nasty retort, Omnirus, who was in a nearby cell, called out, "Ah, quit your blubbering. It's not like you'll live long enough to see prison. We're all doomed." "I didn't see you to be the apocalypse type, usually you want to cause it, not worry about it," sneered Matt, transferring his gaze to Omnirus. "Just because you can't notice the signs doesn't mean they don't exist," said Omnirus, "and I'm not talking that 'power-of-God' garbage, there are actual clues that you're just walking past." "Like what, fuzzy," said Matt rudely. "I guess you haven't done blood tests on those hobo corpses," said Omnirus as he settled down for a nap.

There was a beep that interrupted Matt's retort. "This is Warden to all units. Possible Black alert at Natural History Museum. All units respond," said the A.I over Matt's comm. Matt looked back at Omnirus and said, "You've got some explaining to do when I get back." "I doubt I'll need to explain anything," said Omnirus, "turn out the lights when you leave." Matt did just that, but only for Omnirus's cell. "I'll put the recommendation in tomorrow, Kevin. Soon you'll be blowing up bots for cash," he said.

--

The museum didn't look much, until you saw that the main door's shutters had been torn off and deposited in the alley next to the building. Brooklyn and his family, obviously on patrol were there already. "What tore through here?" asked Matt. "I don't know," said Brooklyn, "But it's at least as strong as a gargoyle." Matt looked at the slashes in the metal. "Definitely, but no wings, they'd have just taken the roof otherwise," he said. "I saw this in a movie once," said Graeme, "Alien mutants from outer space broke into places of public knowledge to learn more about the planet they're about to invade."

Matt walked round the corner and went pale. He made a hand gesture to Sata and Brooklyn to take the kids round a side entrance. Brooklyn and Sata came in to see a guard who had been torn in half. "Only one thing I know does that," said Matt faintly. Sata drew out her katana and said, "We must expect them to be just as merciful with us." "Without a doubt, hold on," he said and shot his disintegrator at the body, removing it. "Least the kids won't be freaked out now," he said. There was no sign of the rest of the guards. "I don't like this," Chris said.

In the security room, a talon pressed the lockdown switch and watched evilly as the whole museum entered lockdown mode. It would take the entire marine corps to get in now...or get out.

The group wandered into the prehistory exhibit. Chris looked at the cavemen, "Hard to imagine we've evolved from them." "I don't know," said Matt, "I see the family resemblance." As Matt was hit over the head by Chris, Brooklyn looked at the cavemen in wonder. 'I wonder…what did our ancestors look like? I know there's plenty of history I didn't see,' he thought. "Boy, humans sure were ugly when they first came around," said Ariana. "I don't they've improved much since then," said Greame. "Hey!" cried Matt and Chris. "Greame," said Sata, "we must show respect towards our friends. Greame?" They looked around to see where he disappeared to.

Everyone turned to shine lights down the corridor. "Where'd he go?" said Chris, concerned. "HEY GREAME, CUT IT OUT!" Matt yelled. The answer was a cry of pain from the miniatures room. They raced into the room and swung their lights around. They found Greame, in the claws of a large lizard-like creature who had his fangs in his shoulder. Sata shrieked like an eagle and flew at the Infected who just tossed Greame at her. She barely caught her son as Matt, Chris and the merc team opened up with so much fire that the Infected was completely shredded. "Oh man," groaned Chris, "I thought we saw the last of those creeps." Then there was a hissing sound in the darkness. "Not even close," said Matt. Another set of eyes appeared, followed by another set...and another, and another, and another. "Oh boy," said Matt. Chris yelled, "LIGHT EM UP!" and the entire merc force opened fire at the advancing horde.

The infected fell one after another. NSC weapon technology had advanced since the Sy-Yong incident. Unseen, their leader pressed a button and something he had brought from his personal stock. Suddenly Matt paused. "Does anyone hear gears grinding?" he asked. Suddenly three lights came on, from the shoulders and torso of a large armor-like robot. "SCATTER!" he yelled as the 'WarTroll' class opened fire with its arm chainguns, literally ripping the corridor to pieces, along with the mercs that had been in the open. "WE GOTTA GO, NOW!" yelled Matt as the 'WarTroll' continued its programming to remove all heat sources. The mercs ran to the doors to find them locked and sealed. "What the heck?" said Chris, "Infected aren't that smart." "ITS COMING!" screamed a merc before a rocket exploded at his feet. When the smoke cleared the merc was gone. The mech stepped round the corner and trained its guns on the mercs and Ariana and Greame who was being tended to by the team's last medic.

The mech stopped at that and a speaker started. "Misssster Lynch. You are alvayzzzz there ven I try to do sssometing," said a familiar, if gravelier voice. Matt's face went pale, "No way, that's impossible. The infection shouldn't work on someone like him." "Oh but eet did," said Romanov's voice. "Vere are your comebacksss Missster Brooklyn? Misster Lynch?" said the voice of the ex-weapon dealer. "Hard to believe even a dirtbag like you could sink so low," said Brooklyn. "Ah, but I issn't your ssson about to sssink to my level?" taunted Romanov. "Come out and face us so I can pull your spleen out your ear," yelled Matt angrily. "Oh, I would glady do ssso," said Romanov, "But I believe my maccchine ssshouldn't be left running." Then the mech's guns started warming up.

"Oh bum..." said Matt as the droid turned to fully aim at him. But before the guns could fire, Sata sliced them off with her katana. "No one harms my hatchlings," she growled. "Very impressive," said Matt, "But I believe the best course of action would be evacuation. The roof seems the best course."

---

High over the city, a futuristic helicopter was hovering in wait. "Got a lock on anything yet?" asked the commander. "Not yet," said the pilot, "Wait a minute, I think I've got something." Then a transmission was picked up, "We're under attack at the Natural History Museum, the attacks are Sy-Yong Infected, big lizard guys with red eyes." "Bingo," said the commander, "Take us down."

---

Matt blew the roof access door off its hinges and across the roof itself before he and the gang piled out, Brooklyn carrying Greame. "Dammit. Sigma 2-0 where are you?" he yelled. "Coming now, boss," said a pilot's voice and a Pelican sailed over to hover over the roof. "Almost got it...HOLY SH-!" said the pilot as an energy burst shot through one of the skylights and hit the pelican mid-section. The droid, still going, flew out followed by several dozen infected swarmed out the hole. "Ok, this has got to be the worst nightmare of my life," said Matt. "Hardly," said Romanov's voice, "What I'm going to do to you will be the worssst nightmare of your life. It will alssso be your lassst."

Matt raised his blaster and looked over at Brooklyn. "Sorry, man," he said. Brooklyn didn't answer. There was suddenly a deafening voice and what looked like two Blackhawk helicopters hovered into view. The first chopper fired a missile at point blank range into the droid, blowing its torso section to pieces. They then fired their wing mounted cannons, sending hundreds of yellow tracers into the Infected. At first Matt expected the Infected to shrug them off like they had almost everything else but whatever the pilots' rides had, they were not US issue as they literally sliced the Infected apart, sending them scattering in panic. A third chopper descended to the roof from the other side and a dozen gas masked troopers jumped out and began firing rifles at them. The Infected might as well have been normal for all the protection their abilities gave them which resulted in even more panic. "Ok, this has got to be the biggest change in luck yet," said Matt. The Infected scattered like cockroaches and jumped over the roof of the building. Pretty soon, all that was left was a bunch of scaly corpses.

Their leader began unclicking his helmet, speaking as he did. "I never expected a member of the Sy-Yong five to get so badly blindsided by a bunch of lizards," he said, finally removing the helmet to reveal a black man with cold eyes that said he'd seen alot of bad things at too young an age, helped along by what were clearly claw slashes along his left cheek. Matt looked at the man with a mixture of confusion and awe. "Um, I'm pretty sure I should know who you are," he said, "Would you mind refreshing my memory?" "Commander Alan Cole. DARKRIFT division," said the man. The gargoyles noticed straight away that the mercs all looked like they'd been given heart attacks. One merc muttered, "Oh shit." "Uh, is this guy really important in your organization?" asked Brooklyn. "DARKRIFT are the black ops kings, they go after demons for fun," said a merc in a shaking voice, flinching away as a DARKRIFT trooper shot a twitching corpse near him. "Demons aren't the quarry today," said Cole. He noticed the gargoyles flinched at the word. "Something I said?" "Just that someone they hate uses that word a lot," said Chris. "Sorry," said Cole, "Couldn't be worse than those suckers, right?" He pointed downwards towards the street.

The group looked down to see what looked like utter chaos. Romanov's infected were running through the streets and into buildings, attacking anyone they saw. The police that were on the scene were trying to fight back but were hopelessly outnumbered. "Probably good we turned up, you'll need a lift," said Cole, pushing Matt's mouth, which had slid open, shut. "How are we going to stop them all?" asked Matt, "We're not gonna-" "Not unless the infection spreads too much. Fortunately, this breed is hydrophobic." "What? They're rabid?" asked Chris. "No, they're afraid of water. They won't be able to get off the island. Plus, my men are blockading the bridges in case some of them decide to face their fears." He looked around and his eyes alighted on Greame. "How'd he get that injury? Anyone else?" he said. Matt made frantic 'lie' gestures behind Cole. "Er, he scraped it, against a T-Rex fossil," said Chris. Cole turned to glare at Chris with a 'yeah, right' expression before looking back at Sata and Brooklyn's looks of worry at Greame and for a second something flashed across his face. Sadness? "Fine, but I want him checked out back at Pest Control 2," he said before pointing at one of the choppers.

Later, the copter started descending towards 'Pest Control 2'. "I know this place," said Brooklyn. "Yes," said Cole, "We've heard that there's been genetic work done here before. By a Dr. Sevarius, correct?" Brooklyn nodded coldly. "Yeah, I saw the results," he said. The lab had been changed a bit. A pair of makeshift helipads had been placed in the parking lot and several heavy duty walls complete with blastdoors and turrets on towers were blocking the approach streets. "Like what we did with the place?" said a DARKRIFT trooper, jokingly.

Inside it was like a modern hospital, only all the doctors were wearing HAZMAT suits and had a pistol each. It looked like several dozen bitten New Yorkers were there. A doctor with her helmet off turned to look as the group came in and Matt felt a little sad. The doc was a dead ringer for Endra. "Dr Kidia, we got a non-human injured here," said Cole to the doctor. Dr. Kidia looked at Greame. "A gargoyle, eh?" she said, "Not sure if there's an entry of them in the medical books." The doctor called an orderly over who offered his arms to take Greame off Brooklyn. "Don't worry. He'll be fine," said Dr Kidia.

"By the way," said Matt, "If this is Pest Control 2, where's Pest Control 1?" "The same place where these things first came from," said Cole. "Oh, then you've met my crew already." "Well, your bug-eyed pet gave us a bit of panic for a while, but we've established relationships." "Tourists are gonna be annoyed that they can't take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty," muttered Matt. Cole heard and replied, "They can explain it to my berretta." "Hmm...original response, I'll give him that," said Chris. "I wonder how the Quarrymen are dealing with this?" wondered Matt outloud. "You mean those guys with the blue hoods and the electric hammers?" said Cole, "They're protesting on the bridge." "They're not getting through, are they?" asked Chris. "Nah, those overgrown pickaxes can't get through our tanks." The doctor came back. "There is no sign of anything beyond a bad cut. I'm recommending he stay here till tomorrow night. I have a few tests that need his presence," he said to Sata, Ariana and Brooklyn while Matt and Chris took bets on when the guards on the Brooklyn Bridge would lose patience with Castaway's goons and blast em the length of the block. So far the betting was at $3000 and rising.

"Would it be okay if we stayed here?" asked Ariana. "Of course," said Cole, "the boy, er, hatchling, whatever, he'll need all the support he can get." "In that case," said Brooklyn, "Matt, could you contact Castle Wyvern? Xanatos and the clan need to be told about those lizard mutants in the streets." Matt nodded and he, Chris and the two surviving members of his team followed him out.

--

It was later, Matt and Chris had been prepared to explain all but it turned out that DARKRIFT had not been 100% successful in stopping the media from finding out. "Sheesh, people didn't like when gargoyles became fact," said Matt as he watched a broadcast of the 'lizard invasion', "Wonder how they'll react to these things?" The news anchors were visibly shaken when they reported on the several outbreaks of 'the unknown disease' and were even more shaken when they went to a reporter that was on the other side of the Manhattan bridge from the island. DARKRIFT troopers sporting US marine logo's could be seen checking cars trying to leave as well as keeping a crush of New Yorkers at bay. "How are we going to change them back?" asked Goliath. "Uh, this isn't some simple disease," said Matt, "This is like Dawn of the Dead." The gargoyle leader's expression did not change. "Obviously you've never seen that movie," said Matt.

Matt toyed with trying to explain Dawn of the Dead then gave up. "Last time this happened the NSC blew the whole colony and the planet for about 5 km around to glass. I doubt they'd do the same here but...dammit," muttered Matt. "Is there not a cure for this?" asked Hudson, "If it spreads like a disease, it can be treated like one, right?" "If there is, the NSC never bothered to make one and any research went up in smoke with the first outbreak," said Matt. On the screen the news had changed to footage of SWAT riot police trying to hold a group of infected back and actually doing quite well. Just then Matt got a message on his communicator, "Matt, it's Brooklyn, you better get back here." "What else could go wrong?" muttered Matt.

Back at Pest Control 2, Dr. Kidia was going over the lab results with Greame's family. "I have bad news, I'm afraid," she said, "It would seem like your young one has been infected. However, it seems to be going at a slower pace. Aside from his green skin, tail, and claws, he hasn't changed at all." Matt looked at Greame and back at Dr Kidia, "Erm...dude? Those were already where when he was born." Dr Kidia glared at Matt before showing a blood result. "Like I said, he's infected but his immunity system has almost completely eradicated it." "I thought no one was immune to this thing," said Matt. "Normally, yes, but it appears that some radiation exposure from his youth has strengthened his immunity system at an exponential rate, very fascinating," said Dr. Kidia as she scribbled something on her notepad, "I'll have him transfered to the NSS Devil's Bane."

Brooklyn and Sata looked furious at this. "What? Not a chance!" yelled Brooklyn in such a way that several of the guards raised their rifles. Sata placed a soothing hand on her mate's arm and spoke next, "Why would you take our son there?" Dr Kidia gestured to the aged equipment in the room. "We're working here with what we found, on the ship we can help use this immunity to create an anti-virus." "No way!" yelled Brooklyn, "I'm not letting you turn my son into a lab rat!" "Sir, think of the potential for this," said Dr. Kidia. Sata glared and said, "My children are to be considered too." "Fair point, your daughter could also provide some use in making the vaccine."

The two gargoyle parents were about to protest when Chip walked into the room. He yawned and said, "Sorry I'm late, I had to recharge, what did I miss?" Matt said cheerfully, "Oh,I think Brooklyn and Sata were about to pluck the good doctor here. Oh and Greame has the anti-bodies for the Sy-Yong virus in his blood. "So what's the big kafuffle about?" said Chip, "We just inject that serum, harvest the antibodies that are produced, mass-produce them, and spread them to the reptilian horde, plain and simple." Chip then got similar glares that had been aimed at the doctor.

Matt thought of a slightly mean but effective way. "Hey Cole, what's standard procedure if you can't contain this?" he said casually. "Well," said Cole hesitatingly, "If this really gets out of control, we'll have to call in a strike. We might even have to do an Atlantis." Brooklyn stared. "What?" he said softly. Cole continued, "We'd deploy particle torpedoes from orbit onto the epicenter, burn the infection down." "But there are thousands of innocents living here!" protested Sata. "And there are billions of innocents on this planet," said Cole, "How long will they remain that way when these monster manage to spread across the globe?" Matt noticed that when he said, there was as much pain in his voice as that of the gargoyles'. Brooklyn said "This is my son you're talking about like he's some...resource. You have no idea..." That was obviously the wrong choice of words as Cole yelled "NO! You don't understand. You won't ever have to be called from your base to identify a DNA scan from Sy-Yong as your wife and son..." before calming down. "Your son could stop another Sy-Yong and could save the entire population of this city."

There was a long and uncomfortable silence. Chip managed to break it and said, "Besides, he's not going to be harmed. It'll be perfectly safe, right doctor?" "Correct," said Dr. Kidia, "It will be like a booster shot, only I'm not sure if your species require vaccines." Dr Kidia seemed to think and said, "We can do the samples here and transport them to orbit, correct, Commander?" Cole said, "I suppose we could...make an exception," and began speaking into his radio. "Of course, as his legal guardians, we do require your permission first," said Dr. Kidia to Brooklyn and Sata.

---

The clan was waiting worriedly for the others to get back. They had heard about Greame and Ariana's potential for developing a vaccine, but they weren't sure if they had agreed or not. They all looked up as the door of the lift opened and Matt and Chris emerged, helping Greame in, his shoulder bandaged up. "Ye've done a brave thing, lad," said Hudson, "Thanks to ye, this city can be cleansed." Matt and Chris shot Hudson a nasty look. "Er, maybe 'cleansed' wasn't the best word to use." "Probably not. Cole wants me and Chip to oversee the deployment of some spray drones so they can spray this cure stuff," said Matt. The news showed a helicopter view of infected swarming through Times Square. "Let's hope it's fast."

Meanwhile, a pair of guards were driving a truck containing the cells of the fugitive mutants. "Don't we have more important things to do?" said one, "They'll need all the firepower they can get." "Yeah, but someone has to make sure these creeps don't die of starvation before they reach Kryos," said the other. The transport was driving to the Pest Control 1 so a shuttle could pick them up. Suddenly the passenger door was wrenched off and an infected pulled the guard on that side out into the street. The other guard fired at the infected climbing in only to be pushed into the steering column hard enough to break his neck, sending the vehicle into a wall with a crash.

The infected sniffed in interest at the cracked hulls of the transport cells. Suddenly orange tendrils whipped out between the cracks and smacked the infected. The smack was surprisingly hard and threw the infected back. The same tendrils started peeling the cracks open even further, to allow a strange alien that resembled a large beast whose body and limbs were made of bandage-like tendrils. Its head was gold-colored and had no eyes. Its forelimbs connected directly to the gold headpiece and the upper portions were black, with a cracked hourglass symbol on the left shoulder.

The infected looked at each other and left as more shooting, mixed with screams was heard outside. The alien, which would call itself Mummymutt if it could speak, ripped the cover off the other cell to let Claw out. "Is that you boss?" asked Claw, "Not very intelligent-looking form." The hybrid alien growled a warning at the half-human. Claw laughed and peered out. Two apache choppers were strafing the infected horde, drawing their full attention. "Think it's time we left before those choppers turn their attention to us," he said. Mummymutt shook his head and started to work on the last cell. Just as he was about to rip it completely open, a hand made of green diamond tore it off. "About time, where did those gas masked idiots get their driving..." said Kevin, pulling himself out, stopping when he saw the dead driver. Before Kevin could make a move, Mummymutt started wrapping more bandages around him. "Hey! Get off!" yelled Kevin. He tried to rip them apart, but Mummymutt was aparently familiar in how to wrangle Tetramands, on which Kevin's form was mostly based. "What do you want from me?" demanded Kevin before another tendril wrapped around his mouth. "I'm not sure either, kid," said Claw, "But according to the boss, he wants something in your head."

Then the sound of hissing appeared in the air. Mummymutt growled and started dragging Kevin away. "What? You're not gonna finish him?" said Claw. Mummymutt barked at Claw, who just managed to understand his implement. "You mean, not here?" Mummymutt nodded and started running off. Claw flapped behind him, anxious to get away from the infected. The horde followed them relentlessly, jumping or smashing obstacles out the way and scaling walls like spiders to try and catch them. The trio finally escaped them when a trio of DARKRIFT tanks rumbled out a side street and began shooting at the horde. Kevin tried to get out of his bindings, but a zap from Claw knocked him out. Just as well as the Omnitrix timed out and Omnirus returned to his basic form. "Can't you drain him now?" said Claw, "We can't carry any more extra weight." "Unfortunately, his AI requires a bit more stimulus before it's able to be assimilated," said Omnirus, "However, I know just the place to go."

---

Matt and Chip were working on the vaccination drone. "Impressive design," said Chip, "but it's a tad silly looking, isn't it?" "Get it done and stop yakking," said a DARKRIFT trooper. The group was on a skyscraper roof. Matt looked at the circuitry and at his wristcomp. "We're ready, send her up and we can fly outta here."

--

Kala and some of the clan n crew were at Pest Control 1 and watching as Cole listened to the various drone teams' report. The team Matt n Chip were in was the last one. "Got it captain. Get back here, now."

--

Chip and Matt watched as the disk-shaped drone shot skywards. They would sit there till the rest were in the sky then they'd spray the anti-virus into the air. "LET'S GO!" yelled the DARKRIFT trooper, leading the way to the waiting transport chopper. "How long until we know this stuff will take affect?" asked Chip. "It'll be a few hours before we see anything but it won't effect Romanov's mates, they've been infected too long," said Matt, looking out the chopper's side doors at the street below. "Well at least it'll thin them out a lot," said Chip, "after which, I suspect we'll have to deal with Romanov in person." "Won't be easy..." muttered Matt. He was knocked out of his thinking when two infected leapt from the roof of a building they'd been passing and tried to climb in the chopper...

--

Cole looked over as yells and gunfire came over the feed from Matt's team. "What the hell? Squad 3...report..."

--

Matt pushed an infected out the side of the chopper only to hear a scream as another dragged the pilot out the side and threw him to the street. He looked at Chip as the chopper steered drunkenly over another building and kicked him out onto the roof. "You'll thank me later," muttered Matt as the side of a building loomed in the windscreen of the chopper. Matt quickly took a running start and leaped out of the helicopter before it crashed into the building. "I really hope this works," said Matt as he tried transforming into his dragon form. He managed to land unsteadily in an alley only to hear a hissing. "Oh nuts," he said.

---

"People, I'm afraid I have bad news," said Cole, "It seems that after they've managed to get the anti-virus drones online, the copter that Matt and Chip were was attacked by the infected and crashed." Kala in particular took the news badly, staring in horror. "I've sent choppers out to sweep the area but that areas pretty badly infested...I'm sorry," Cole said before walking out.

* * *

And here's the first half of another two-part chapter. This one ends even more suspensefully than the last two-parter's first half. Did Matt and Chip survive their crash? Where is Omnirus going to take Kevin? Speaking of which, Kevin is of course, Kevin 11 from Ben 10. He and Matt met during Prison Outbreak. Also Mummymutt is slightly different from the one made by Man of Action. Instead of being 'papyrus brown', he's the same orange as Wildmutt, his fingers end with claws, and instead of those black grevers being on his fore arms, they instead cover his upper arms with the Omnitrix symbolt on his left shoulder. The arms connected directly to his headpiece. It's always bothered me that they keep putting the Omnitrix symbol on the Benmummy combos where it could potentially be separated from his head. If Benmummy's supposed to be able to regenerate from his head, wouldn't it make sense to have the Omnitrix symbol on his head? The only combo that follows this logic is Mummyarms, go figure. Anyways, the last chapter is coming soon. Keep an eye out for it and please review.


	10. Mutation pt 2

**Retrieval Saga: Nocturne Operations**

**Chapter 10: Mutation pt 2**

Things were looking grim. There was a growing swarm of killer infectious lizard mutants in the streets of New York. Though a vaccine has been made and deployed in several spraying drones, the gang had apparently lost Matt and Chip when their chopper was attacked by the infected. Cole looked at the last field reports. The vaccine had given the added bonus of making people who inhaled it immune to new infections. However the choppers were yet to find any signs of Matt or Chip and he was reluctant to let Matt's crew on the loose.

As Cole was trying to determine their next course of action, Draco walked in. "Have you found them yet?" he asked, his voice not hiding any of the distress he was feeling. "You know...the area they went down in was a red class outbreak zone. They're probably running amok with their new infected buddies by now." said Cole, not looking up from the reports. "I don't believe that," said Draco, "Matt's been through this before. Even if he were infected, he'd be able to fight it. And Chip's got electrical veins, it's impossible for him to get any organic infection." "Mr. Lynch would have turned had he not been put in cryo for the trip to a gene therapy center and if your Chip is immune, then he's probably been sprinkled around the block," said Cole.

Draco growled to himself, "Last time Chip nearly died, I could only stand there and watch. But I'm not gonna stand around and wait for a black-bordered envelope." "Ok, walk out there, get your ass eaten. It's no skin off my paycheck," said Cole and suddenly found himself grabbed and pulled down to face Draco nose to snout. "I know you had family that got destroyed on Sy-Yong," he growled, "But you at least have the comfort of not watching them die. I had to watch that cackling revenge droid feed Chip to a carnivorous moon. And this time I've given the choice to act. And I'm going to choose to save my brother." He threw Cole back and stormed out of the room. Cole glared after the experiment then looked at his comm. What happened next could go two ways. He could do nothing and the guards on the perimeter would stop Draco and whatever he had in mind or he could comm the perimeter to let them through. He clicked the intercom on, "Perimeter? This is Cole..."

Draco didn't go immediately to the perimeter. First he went to the weapons room to stock up. He had no doubts in his fighting abilities, but this wasn't the time to take chances. When he was done, he looked like he had gone 'Rambo'. Kala and Lexington were waiting for Draco and were the first to spot him in his Rambo outfit when he appeared with a smirking Contrinus behind him. "I think Draco's been around Matt for too long, Lex," muttered Kala. "Don't try to stop me," warned Draco. "With those duds, I wouldn't dare try," said Lexington. "Anyways, we aren't here to stop you," said Kala, "We're here to help." Draco was about to say something then shrugged.

--

The guards at the perimeter of Pest Control 1 didn't seem to be on top of their game. In fact, getting past them was all too easy but then again it was never good to be annoyed at good luck. Nobody noticed when one of the guards turned as they went by and spoke into his radio, "They're away." "Good," came Cole's reply, "Last thing we need are a couple of hotheads causing insubordinations around here." To himself, he muttered, "May God have mercy on them."

--

The group arrived at where the chopper had crashed. They'd passed alot of unconscious infected that were already half-cured. The serum was obviously working its magic. However, they had already had a few run-ins with infected that were obviously immune, the ones that had escaped the Warden lab. "Draco, I have a confession to make," said Kala. "You use Contrinus's tweezers for your eyelashes I know," said Draco. He noted the surprised and angry look on Contrinus's face. "But apparently she didn't." "I...you do know I came along cause of Matt, don't you?" she said in a slightly ashamed voice. "Yeah, I figured that," said Draco, as he nudged an infected to make sure it was really dead, "Not that I'm not concerned about him. I just think Chip needs help the most."

At that moment there was a flash from an alley and two infected came out of it...backwards on a flash of viral energy. "It appears that I've spoken too soon," said Draco gladly as Chip limped out of the alley. He was dented and marred in a couple places and one of his legs looked broken, but he was otherwise perfectly fine. Kala and Lexington went over. "Wow, you look like you went a round with Coyote," he said looking over the damage and pulling a broken fang out of an arm servitor. "Would that be the robot or the trickster?" asked Chip. "Both seems to fit in this category," said Lexington, "fortunately, I brought a little cure-all." He reached into his satchel and pulled out a blob of black and indigo slime. V-Quip made a noise like a mechanical burp and jumped happily onto the damaged arm.

Kala said, "Did you see Matt? Is he ok?" "I'm afraid I wouldn't know," said Chip as V-Quip got to work repairing his damaged systems, "He literally kicked me out before the chopper hit that building. I think I saw him shift to dragon form and fly out before it crashed. I didn't see where he landed."

There was a distant explosion, the top of the flowering explosion visible at the opposite end of an alley. It was followed by the familiar shriek of the infected mixed with assault rifle fire. "That could possibly be Matt," said Draco, "It sounds like his fighting style." The group headed along to see a huge battle taking place between a mix of SWAT and DARKRIFT and a huge group of Infected. "I was kinda close," said Draco. "I think they could use a hand," said Chip as V-Quip bonded with him. The infected turned as the gargoyles and experiments rushed onto the scene. It was exactly what the humans had needed, quickly routing the majority of the infected.

One infected however focused his gaze of the newcomers and pointed his hand at them. "Hey, what's he..." began Draco and got his answer when a plasma orb hit him in the chest. "No, it can't be," said Kala. "Kala," said Chip-grade, "Even it is him, don't get too close. We may have been vaccinated, but we're hardly immortal." The infected that had fired at him sneered and headed down an alley, clearing the chain link fence blocking it with a jump. "Wait!" called Kala and she climbed up a pole to get enough height to glide after the infected. "Kala! No! Don't go alone!" yelled Lexington. Draco and Contrinus also chased after Kala. None of them noticed the NSC drone following them.

The infected eventually came to a stop in a deserted square. Kala, Draco, and Contrinus landed on the other side. "Matt!" called out Kala. The infected just roared and threw another plasma orb. Kala dodged the blast just in time to see the infected lunge at Draco and push him through a wall, literally. Seemingly as if on cue, about 50 more infected emerged from hiding places. "Get them," hissed the leader infected. Though it was heavily contorted, Kala recognized the infected's voice. "That's Matt alright," she said. Fortunately, she had borrowed one of Draco's guns and was blasting away the infected that was coming at her. "Well, if he won't listen to words, then I'll have to try physical stimulus." With that she aimed at Matt who put on a look of faked hurt. "Why, Kala, I'm hurt, you wouldn't ssshoot me would you?" he said, advancing on her. "Not in the conventional sense," said Kala and whipped her tail out to knock Matt off his legs. Before he could respond, Kala brought his head forward and planted a kiss on his scaly muzzle. Matt seemed to stop from shock and didn't move even when the other infected leapt on her and dragged her down. Matt seemed to have come to a decision and reached down with his clawed hands. He started pulling mutants off, not caring if he sliced something off as he tossed them away. "The pack leader wantsss them alive you hatchingsss," he snarled, slicing one across the face. "Ok, that was worth a shot," said Draco as he and Contrinus watched from afar while blasting away more infected. "Let's try that again, but this time a little harder and on the other side of his head," said Contrinus.

---

Meanwhile, another set of mutants were making their way towards their goal. Of course, not all of them thought it was a good idea. "I don't know," said Claw, "Aren't we walking right into enemy hands?" "Since we've got significant force on our side, I consider it invasion," said Omnirus. Claw was not convinced. "I thought that as well and I ended up in their cells for the better part of a year," he muttered as the Labyrinth entrance came into view, the heavy blast door closed.

Two infected were scratching at it in a bored way and ran when they saw Claw and Omnirus, dragging Kevin. Claw was about to fly away when Omnirus said, "Wait, this could be beneficial." As the infected growled at them, Omnirus tried his most pleasing-sounding voice, "You boys want to get in there? Well, so do we. I think that if you consider us non-edible, you'll find we can point towards several new flavors of mammalian flesh. How's that sound?" The infected looked at each other. The one on the left, whose scales were a deep ebony color glared. "How do we know you won't jussst ussse uss as Cannon fodder?" "A fair point," said Omnirus, "but you'd stand to gain more with me. And there's hardly a chance such mighty creatures like yourselves being struck down by those furballs. You're far too tough for that." This seemed to appeal to the infected, or at least their egos. They stepped aside to let Omnirus to the door. Claw looked at his partner. Even he had standards and he felt decidedly uncomfortable with letting these things loose on the people that called the Labyrinth home.

"Pretty nice blast door," said Omnirus, "Looks like I'll have to pull out the big guns for this." He activated his Omnitrix and transformed into his bizarrest form yet. It had a round body with pants on his short legs. He had a hard yellow shell covering his back and arms, with his face being where his chest would be. Most noticeably, he had three green eyes on each piece of armor with a large one under his mouth. A pair of bat wings was over his mouth without any eyes between. "What does that thing do?" asked Claw. "It's called Eye Bolt," said Omnirus in a deeper nasal voice, "And you're gonna see in a second." He sent several heat rays out of his eyes and heated up the blast door. Then he merged the eyes on his forearms to make them produce a freeze ray. This caused the door to rapidly cool and crack. Then Eye Bolt curled into an armored ball and rolled at the door. He bounced off at a high speed and uncurled. The door had a nice 3 foot hole blown in it.

The infected shrieked and lunged at the first people they saw while Eye Bolt laughed. Kevin glared at them, with a 'you'll pay for this' type of glare. "Our goal's to get to their lab," said Eye Bolt, "We don't have time to smash everyone inside. If someone gets in your way, shove them aside. If they persist, attack them. But let's not lose our heads." Claw headed through the hole after Eye Bolt and paused for a second. The infected had been quick of the mark and the people they'd bitten were already trying to attack his old clan and anyone else in range. "What you waiting for?" called Eye Bolt, "We'll be in and out in a couple minutes. You're not getting sentimental now, are ya?" Claw watched Talon electrocute a pair of infected to the floor then shook his head. "Course not," he said though he sounded a bit uncertain, before following Eye Bolt.

Meanwhile...

"How hard could it be?" Contrinus was saying sarcastically, "We'll just fly around and whack him on the head." "Ok, I didn't realize his combat training would carry over to his infected form," said Draco. There was a clunk on the side of their cage. "Ssshut up in there," hissed an infected. "You have done vell, my young asssisstant," said Romnaov to Matt, "Truthfully, tearink you apart was one of my greatessst dessiresss, but you've proven more ussseful zen zat." Matt didn't seem to be listening. "Sssorry?" he said, looking over at the other prisoner, the gargoyle. Something was nagging at him, like he'd seen her before. Romanov's tone changed. "However, how you let zat green gargoyle essscape isss beyond me," he hissed angrily. "He wasssn't with the othersss," said Matt, "I think he wass with that cccyborg thing." Romanov snarled. "Excusssses, I'm sssending sssome out to find zem. You, wait till that one goessss into ssstone sssleep then, well, I alwaysss wanted a rockery," he said, looking at Kala with an evil grin. Kala growled and flashed her eyes red. Romanov then left to go to his private quarters. Then there was a moment of silence before Draco said, "Would you guys mind if I sang '99 Bottles of Bear'?" "Yes!" shouted the two females. "Thought I'd ask."

---

Elsewhere, Lexington and Chip-grade had just finished off another batch of infected. "When's this vaccine supposed to kick in?" asked Lexington. "I think in another hour or two," said Chip-grade. Suddenly he paused as he felt V-Quip sense something. He looked upward to see a surveillance drone.

Back at Pest Control 1, the comm tech watching the feed blanched. "Er, commander? I think we're rumbled...YOW!" he said to Commander Cole as Chip used his virus powers to teleport himself and Lexington through the drone. Cole, for once, looked worried as both the cyborg and the gargoyle looked pissed off. "Now then, this wasn't my idea..." Cole said, backing up a bit. "I'm not convinced about that," said Chip, "and if it were, I doubt that the intention was to keep an eye out for us." Cole sagged. "It wasn't, the drone tailed your friends' back. Command has a precision strike on their HQ ready. The frigate that does the deed arrives here in an hour, clean, no collateral. The cover's already in place, a gas explosion," he said gloomily.

"Given the circumstances, I could see how something like that's necessary," said Chip. "But I really think you could have warned us so we get away in time," said Lexington. Cole looked even grimmer. "Don't you think I wanted to?" he said. "Wait a minute," said Lexington, "You were forbidden to warn us?" "What kind of jerk would use people like us as cannon fodder to..." Chip sighed and said, "Let me guess, Neilsson?" Cole brightened up "You know that little weasel? I had the bad luck to owe him one. I keep my favors, no matter how smeggy the person I owe it too, " he said. "I'm surprised that registration form hasn't caught up to him yet," said Chip and sighed, "Ok, so we've got an hour to get Matt, Kala, Draco, and Contrinus away from Romanov. We're gonna have to look for them of course, but hopefully they've getting around to freeing themselves." Cole sighed. "That was one of the favors," he muttered, adding 'Little smeghead'. Then he smirked. "He said we can't help you, but he never said anything about us not launching an independent assault," he added with a grin worthy of Hyena.

Suddenly Lexington's communicator rang. "Hang on, I've got to answer this." He held it up to his ear and said, "Lexington here." A few moments later, he said, "Are you kidding? We've got enough to deal with as it is!" Then he sighed and said, "Fine, I'll try to do what I can." He turned to the others and said, "You're not gonna believe, this, but there's an invasion going on in the Labyrinth. And the ringleader's Omnirus." Cole rolled his eyes. "I was wondering why he didn't arrive. I'm coming along," he said and before Lex could protest clicked a nasty looking gauntlet that had a ring of blaster barrels mounted round the wrist and added "...ok?"

---

It was total chaos at the labyrinth. The infected were causing mayhem, attacking anything in range. Kevin watched as one was sent past the room they were in at a flat trajectory to hit an unseen wall with a crunch. "Sheesh," said Omnirus, "All we wanted was to use their equipment. Did we really have to go through all this?" He tossed a chair and said, "Ah, who am I kidding, this is fun." Kevin muttered "And you think they'll let you stroll outta here? Looks like your pals are losing, badly." "They're just a distraction," said Omnirus, "time to get to work."

He put Kevin on a lab table and said, "Time to get that AI out of you. You aren't ticklish, are you?" "What do you plan to accomplish with that?" said Kevin. "If I'm correct, it'll upgrade my powers considerably. But I need to give it a little juice to make more easily assimilated. This is gonna pinch a bit." He attached two alligator clips to Kevin's ears. "Will this hurt?" asked Kevin. "For me, not at all," said Omnirus, "For you, a very large shock." He pulled a lever and a course of electricity through Kevin's head.

Kevin yelled as the electricity blasted across his brain and his eyes slid shut. When they opened, his eyes were solid red. "What the blitznak? Who're you guys?" said the A.I. "Don't fret too much about it," said Omnirus, "You're not staying too long in that head for it to matter." He tapped his Omnitrix and a bright green light covered Kevin's head. His head shook as the AI was sucked out and electronically downloaded into Omnirus's Omnitrix. Unfortunately this time, it seemed that Kevin wasn't as lobotomized as Omnirus's other victims as he pulled free and punched Omnirus through the ceiling. "NOW I'M REALLY MAD!" he yelled

Claw had watched this and said, "Ok, the boss got what he want, now I want to get out of here." His path was blocked by Talon. "You dare to bring these monsters in here?" he growled, his eyes glowing yellow, "where there are so many innocents?" "Look, it was his idea, not mine," said Claw, "It's nothing personal at all. I hate these skinks as much as you."

Claw noticed that the fighting now had what sounded like gunfire mixed in. A few infected ran by, chased by four figures holding assault rifles. Cole strolled by and walked up. "Very nicely done," said Cole. "So you're Claw, you're very lucky Talon caught you first as you've committed some nasty crimes against the NSC," he said, adding after a pause "Capital crimes...of course if Talon wishes to release you to our custody..." he said, winking at Talon. "Now, let's not be too hasty," said Claw, "I'm just a hired hand. Don't you want the guy who brought these infected in here? And doesn't that freak over there have a criminal record?" Cole looked at Kevin and remembered why he'd asked for Kevin at Pest Control 1 "Him? He's an employee. why'd I go after him?" he said. "Uh, er, hey look! Is that a demonic duck of some sort?"

Cole looked at Talon and strolled up and waved Kevin over. "May he?" he asked politely. "What? What are you-" Claw was shut up when Kevin hit him over the head. The force drove into the ground like a stake. The stunned look on his face was to die for, as well as the tweeting birds around his head. Cole smirked at Kevin. "I think you'll fit in fine," he said. "You don't mind a face like mine around?" said Kevin. "Nah, you're actually better looking than Neilsson. But we can get treatment for you if you're self-conscious."

---

Chip peered over the wall of the warehouse that Cole had said that the drones had followed the infected to. Infected prowled the pathways between the 8 or so warehouses that made up the storage park. "Boy, what a scum hole," said Chip. "Yeah," said Lexington, "time for Operation: Get Our Friends Away From the Lizards." "Right," said Chip. He paused and said, "Lexington?" "Yeah?" "You need to work on your naming skills." "I know."

An infected was on guard, holding a needler from Romanov's stores when a noise from behind made him turn. He therefore met the fists of both Goliath and Brooklyn at high speed. "Nice to have backup," said Chip, "Particularly of the large super-strong variety." "I'm not that large," said Broadway. "Well, I come up to most people's knees, nearly everyone's larger than me."

Several more infected ran round the corner to meet Sata. "A female?" hissed one of them, laughing before leveling his plasma rifle at her. His grin vanished when Stat effortlessly knocked the rifle away with her sword. Another swing took the points off the claws on one hand. "SHOOT HER!" he screamed insanely only for her to knock him down with the flat of her sword. The others watched as Sata dispensed with several infected guards. "Ye found a real gem there, lad," said Hudson. "Don't I know it," said Brooklyn.

There was a crash as another of the 'WarTroll' droids walked out of a warehouse via a wall and turned towards them. Before anyone could act a Slamhound fighter flew overhead, dropping a missile onto the droid, neatly blowing it apart. At the same time several explosions were heard and several columns of smoke floated into the sky from the other side. "Well, that ought to keep them busy," said Chip, "Now it's time to find the others." He had been holding Chupy on a leash for the last few minutes, but now he set them down. "Go find them boy," he said. Chupy promptly ran over and clamped onto Bronx's hindquarters. Chip sighed. "WRONG way," he sighed pulling Chupy off and pointing him in the vague direction of the center of the compound.

--

Romanov growled as he strode towards where Kala was being held. The NSC's DARKRIFT were literally knocking on the doors and he wanted to gloat over what was left of that annoying experiment. He was therefore furious when he saw that the experiment turned gargoyle was still alive and awake. "Your friendsss are beink very annoying," growled Romanov, "Perhapsss I ssshould have my cake now inssstead of later." "You actually got a life when you could, you'd know females aren't that easy to handle," said Kala, her eyes flashing red in warning. Romanov wasn't convinced. "Mr Lynch, sssnap thisss mutant'sss neck for me," he said, mentally trying to nudge him into obeying. Matt hesitated and said, "I, I can't." "Ussselesss weakling," growled Romanov, "I guesss I'll have to do it myssself." Romanov pushed Matt aside and reached out to grab Kala. "It's almost a shame to do this, no wait, it isn't," he said before hearing a snarl and turning to meet Matt's fist that sent him through the wall.

"K...kala?" said Matt, trying to pull her restraints apart. "Yeah, it's me," said Kala, "It's about time you came around. I almost thought you lost yourself." "I had..." said Matt shakily. "I was...enjoying all those...things that I...oh god," he said. "Now Matt," said Contrinus, "I know you'll be feeling a lot of guilt right now about what you've done. I understand, I was in that same position. But would you mind holding in your angst for a little bit and GET US OUT OF HERE!!" Matt turned and was about to do that when a cluster of purple needles landed at his feet, glowed and exploded. Romanov, his cuts healing already, and holding a needler blaster, walked through the hole, tossed it aside and lunged at Matt. "I SSSHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU!" he hissed.

"Oh great," said Draco, "yet another delay to our leaving this snake pit." The three of them watched Matt and Romanov attack each other like feral crocodiles. There was a crackling noise and Kala gripped her head, her shape flickering like an out of tune TV image. There was a bright flash and she was her experiment self again. Now that Kala was smaller, she was easily able to slip out of her shackles. "Now there's good timing," said Draco, "You think you could get the lock on this cage for us?" Kala ran over and blasted the first lock off as behind them, Romanov got Matt in a headlock and rammed him into a wall a few times before throwing him across the room into a support pillar. "You vill not live through zis," said Romanov, advancing. He was about to pounce when a hissing noise got his attention and a stray 88mm rocket from the fight outside hit the building, blowing him off his feet. Matt tensed his legs and launched himself at Romanov. The two of them collided in midair and went through a window.

Kala was about to finish the last lock, already half melted when she saw Matt and Romanov fall through the window. "MATT!" she yelled and ran towards the window, jumping out after them. This helped as Romanov, who'd recovered first did not expect her to land on his head. "Vat the?" Romanov pulled Kala off and said, "I sssuppossse a light sssnack will help boossst up my ssstamina." He was about to bite her when a series of ricochets narrowly took his head off. The gunship that had done the attack flew overhead and ripped a few infected apart. "Drop her, Romanov," growled Matt, "Your fight'sss with me." Matt growled and lunged at Romanov, sending them both rolling across the tarmac. Matt finally came out on top and began smashing Romanov's head on the ground over and over. When he stopped, Romanov actually looked frightened. "No, no, pleassse ssstop," he said terrified. "You sssshould have thought about that," replied Matt and readied a fist to smash Romanovs face into the tarmac. Matt prided himself on hardly ever killing, but he was never usually so sure he could make the multiverse a better place as he was now.

Just then, Chip and the gargoyles landed nearby. Goliath quickly noticed what was going on and cried, "Stop Matt!" "You're not talking me out of this one," growled Matt, "This time, he does deserve to die." Then Draco and Contrinus flew over, carrying Kala between them. "Matt, don't do this!" cried Kala, "This isn't you. What happened to the Matt I talked to at Castle Wyvern after he banished the Dark Dragon?" Matt looked down at Romanov and back at Kala and then at himself in a puddle. Without a word he let Romanov go and gently curled up sobbing. Romanov looked around. "You let me go?" he hissed. The fighting between the DARKRIFT and the remaining infected was much closer now. "If you're not out of eyesight by the time I count to ten, you're finished," said Chip, his arms converting to cannons. Romanov looked around then back at Matt as if asking for him to confirm it. Then he ran for it, just in time as the first of the DARKRIFT squads ran round the corner, shooting infected as they went. They would have also shot Matt too had the others not blocked them. Matt was just sobbing.

Later, the gargoyles and experiments took Matt back to Pest Control 2. After a couple minutes of misgivings and execution attempts, Matt was placed in a cell for eventual gene therapy. He'd apparently reverted again and was glaring through the cell at them. Cole was next to the crew. "Here," he said, passing them a card. "This is the code to a Dr Circe's cruiser in sector 7-S in the badlands. She does special work with Genetic therapy. She knows you're coming." "Uh, are you sure it's safe to travel with him?" asked Chris. "Don't worry, his body's built like a reptile's. Get him cold enough, and he'll go into hibernation." On cue there was a hissing noise as a cold vapor flooded the chamber. Matt yawned for a second then slowly curled up. "Ready to go, oh, and we give out favors in three's. Consider the referral favor 1, call us if you need us." Said Cole and walked out.

Kala just looked at Matt and said to herself, "Too bad we had to leave under these circumstances." "Eh, we understand," said Broadway. "You're always welcome to visit us," said Angela. "Yeah, drop by any time," said Brooklyn. Sata elbowed him in the ribs and he said, "Of course, I mean that figuratively. I'm not saying to time travel back here. That would be silly." Goliath turned to Stitch and said, "Your brethren are unusual, but they are clearly worthy warriors. I hope we cross paths again some day." He held out his arm which Stitch attempted to grip in the gargoyle manner he saw, only for his arm to be practically engulfed by Goliath's grip. Then Contrinus said to herself, "I wonder what happened to Romanov?"

---

Meanwhile, Romanov was wandering the streets all by himself. "Ssstupid Matt," he hissed, "sssome day he'll get hisss. And I hope I get to sssee that." Just then, he heard something like metal being snapped apart. "Who'sss there?" he demanded. He looked down a darkened alley and saw a figure the size of a 10 year old child coming out of a manhole. "Bah, a pesssky ssstreet urchin. Sssuch a wassste of-" His grumbling was cut of short when a green lightning bolt hit him and threw him across the street. "Vat vassss that?" he said. Suddenly two freeze rays shot out and froze him where he stood. Romanov could watch as the figure approached him, suddenly not seeming like a street urchin anymore. The last thing he saw was a flaming spike heading for his head.

Not wanting to take any more chances, Omnirus didn't stop until all that remained of the once-infamous weapons dealer Romanov was a pile of ashes. A flick of his tail scattered them towards a trash heap. You see, Omnirus's size wasn't the only thing that had changed. His body had altered quite dramatically. His upper right arm now resembled that of that of Diamondblast while his upper left arm was that of Vicktorvine. His lower arms both resembled Mummymutt's. His legs had grown to resemble XLRWolf's the same way his tail had grown to resemble Ghostjaws's. His vest had adjusted slightly so that that Eye Bolt's shell and Stinkgrade's wings could come out. His head also changed in that he now had Kevin's long black hair. Omnirus chuckled to himself and said, with a voice that resembled Kevin's only deeper, "They thought Omnirus was bad? Wait till they see Omnirus X!"

* * *

There's the final chapter. But don't think this is the last time the gang visits the Gargoyles universe. There may be another story there in the not-so-distant future. However, this is gonna be the last time we ever see Romanov, except in stories that take place in the past. Omnirus is going to show up again soon, but not 'in-the-next-story' soon. By the way, both his Eye Bolt and his Omnirus X form are my designs. Eye Bolt's currently on my deviantART account and I'll have Omnirus X up soon. The next story's coming soon so keep an eye out for it. Please review.


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